Energy Changes Bars Tool: The Energy Changes Bars Tool plots colored bars that display the bond energy, in kilocalories/mole, released or absorbed when elements combine to form compounds, or when compounds are decomposed into their constituent elements.

In the Chemistry Analyzer simulator, place an energy bars tool by first selecting the Substance Analyzer. Click on the Energy Bars button and click at the desired position of the bar graph. You can reposition the energy bars graph.

In the Chemistry Reactor simulator, place an energy bars tool by first selecting the Substance Reactor. Click on the Energy Bars button and click at the desired position of the bar graph.

In the energy bars tool's Properties Box, you can set:

• Refresh time. How often the tool redraws the energy bars. Not important for the Chemistry Simulators.
• Show energy readouts. Controls whether energies are displayed as numbers as well as bars. Default option is to display the readouts.
• View mode. Determines the size of the Energy Changes Bars display. You have three choices, min mode, normal mode, and max mode. The figure at the bottom of this help page illustrates normal mode. Energy labels and readouts are not visible in min mode.
• Scale mode. You have two choices, auto mode (default) or hand mode. With hand mode, you can set the scale of the energy bars (see maximum value below). In auto mode, the scales are determined automatically by the simulator.
• Maximum value. Hand mode only: Sets the maximum energy value displayed by the bars. In auto mode, setting this value has no effect.

This Energy Changes Bars tool displays the energy changes that result from the decomposition of calcium carbonate. The bar graph indicates that the Substance Analyzer had to input 1205 kilocalories/mole to break down the calcium carbonate into calcium, oxygen, and carbon. The atoms absorbed the energy and the calcium carbonate molecules broke apart.