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Chemistry LibreTexts

1: Gases

  • Page ID
    164726
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    • 1.1: The Phases of Matter
      Bulk matter can exist in three states: gas, liquid, and solid. Gases have the lowest density of the three, are highly compressible, and fill their containers completely. Elements that exist as gases at room temperature and pressure are clustered on the right side of the periodic table; they occur as either monatomic gases (the noble gases) or diatomic molecules (some halogens, N₂, O₂).
    • 1.2: Gas Pressure
      Gases exert pressure, which is force per unit area. The pressure of a gas may be expressed in the SI unit of pascal or kilopascal, as well as in many other units including torr, atmosphere, and bar. Atmospheric pressure is measured using a barometer; other gas pressures can be measured using one of several types of manometers.
    • 1.3: The Gas Laws
      The behavior of gases can be described by several laws based on experimental observations of their properties. including Amontons’s law, Charles’s law, Boyle’s lawand Avogadro’s law. These laws can be extracted directly from the ideal gas law.
    • 1.4: The Kinetic Molecular Theory of Ideal Gases
      The kinetic molecular theory is a simple but very effective model that effectively explains ideal gas behavior. The theory assumes that gases consist of widely separated molecules of negligible volume that are in constant motion, colliding elastically with one another and the walls of their container with average velocities determined by their absolute temperatures. The individual molecules of a gas exhibit a range of velocities.
    • 1.5: Applications of the Ideal Gas Law
      The relationship between the amounts of products and reactants in a chemical reaction can be expressed in units of moles or masses of pure substances, of volumes of solutions, or of volumes of gaseous substances. The ideal gas law can be used to calculate the volume of gaseous products or reactants as needed. In the laboratory, gases produced in a reaction are often collected by the displacement of water from filled vessels; the amount of gas can be calculated from the volume of water displaced.
    • 1.6: Gas Mixtures and Partial Pressures
      The pressure exerted by each gas in a gas mixture is independent of the pressure exerted by all other gases present. Consequently, the total pressure exerted by a mixture of gases is the sum of the partial pressures of the components (Dalton’s law of partial pressures). The amount of gas in a mixture may be described by its partial pressure or its mole fraction. In a mixture, the partial pressure of each gas is the product of the total pressure and the mole fraction.
    • 1.7: Real Gases
      No real gas exhibits ideal gas behavior, although many real gases approximate it over a range of conditions. Gases most closely approximate ideal gas behavior at high temperatures and low pressures. Deviations from ideal gas law behavior can be described by the van der Waals equation, which includes empirical constants to correct for the actual volume of the gaseous molecules and quantify the reduction in pressure due to intermolecular attractive forces.


    1: Gases is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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