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The study of gases and how their properties relate is one of the earliest quantifiable tests of what eventually became chemistry. If you take a sealed jar of gas and keep the gas from entering or leaving, you can characterize the material in the container by three measurements: the temperature, the volume, and the pressure. In this article, we’re going to learn how most people are taught how these three quantities are related. Learn more about what the world gets wrong about science. Boyle’s Law: The Pressure Is Inversely Proportional to VolumeThe first study of the linkages between the temperature, pressure, and volume of a gas was made in 1662 when Irish chemist Robert Boyle explored the relationship between pressure and volume. He took a J-shaped glass tube filled with air and then poured in liquid mercury. By varying the amount of mercury he poured in, he varied the pressure that the air experienced. He found that the pressure was inversely proportional to the volume, which is to say, as the pressure increased the volume decreased. Mathematically, he found that the pressure times the volume equaled a constant. We now call this Boyle’s law and write it as PV=k, where P is pressure, V is volume, and k is a constant. If we double the pressure, then we cut the volume in half. Boyle is often considered to be the first modern chemist and he was ahead of his time. It was nearly 150 years before the next advance was made.
Charles’ Law: The Volume Is Directly Proportional to TemperatureIn 1787, French chemist Jacques Charles was experimenting on the relationship between the volume and temperature of a gas. What he found was that, if he kept the pressure constant, that the volume of a gas was proportional to the gas’s temperature. If you doubled the temperature of a gas, you doubled its volume. Mathematically, you can write this as volume divided by temperature as a constant. And, by the way, to do this, you need to express the temperature in units of kelvin. In Fahrenheit, water freezes and boils at 32° and 212° respectively. In Celsius or centigrade, water freezes and boils at 0° and 100°. In the kelvin scale, water freezes at 273.15° and boils at 373.15°. Those two temperatures are 100° apart, just like the Celsius scale, but with a big offset. The kelvin scale is perhaps sensible because 0° kelvin is the smallest possible temperature, whereas the zero of the other two scales is a bit more arbitrary. Talking about the history of the different temperature scales is very interesting, but it would be off the topic for us. Just remember that for this lecture we’re always going to have to use the kelvin scale. Gay-Lussac’s Law: Pressure Is Directly Proportional to the TemperatureCharles didn’t publish his work for many years, and it was two decades later in 1802 when French chemist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac studied the connection between pressure and temperature that Charles’ work came to light. In fact, it was Gay-Lussac who shared it with the world. What Gay-Lussac found was that the pressure of gas was directly proportional to the temperature. And, again in terms of a formula, he wrote that pressure P, divided by temperature T was a constant. Double the pressure and you double the temperature, and vice versa. And, of course, we need to use kelvin for temperature. Learn more about myths of orbital motion. Avogadro’s Law: The Volume Is Directly Proportional to the Number of AtomsIt was a few years later, in 1811, when Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro determined that at constant temperature and pressure, the volume of a gas was proportional to the number of atoms in the container. The idea is the same as the others. Double the number of atoms and you double the volume. This is called Avogadro’s law. Combined Gas LawSo, these four laws: Avogadro’s law, which connects the number of atoms and volume; Boyle’s law, which compares pressure and volume; Charles’ law, which compares volume and temperature; and the Gay-Lussac law, which compares temperature and pressure, were pieces of what we now call the combined gas law. In 1834, French physicist Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron combined them together into a single law. The only way to combine these four laws was if the pressure times the volume divided by the temperature and number of atoms were a constant. That means that if the pressure and volume were increased times two, the temperature would need to be increased by four, or the number of atoms would have to change. That constant on the right-hand side has a name and a symbol. It’s denoted R and it’s called the ideal gas constant. This allows you to write the relationship between all of these variables in what is called the ideal gas law with an equation of PV=nRT. P, V, and T are the pressure, volume, and temperature; R is the ideal gas constant; n is the number of gas molecules in volume in a funny unit. If you have 6 times 10 raised to the 23rd power number of anything, it’s called a mole. No, it has nothing to do with the nearsighted underground rodent. The term comes from an abbreviation of the German word for molecule. A mole is basically like the word dozen. You could have a dozen eggs or a dozen pairs of shoes. Similarly, you could have a mole of molecules. In any event, the symbol n is just the number of molecules of gas you have, divided by that 6 times 10 to the 23rd number. That tells you the amount of molecules you have in units of moles. So, that’s the ideal gas law: PV=nRT. It just slides off the tongue, PV=nRT. Common Questions about the Evolution of Combined Gas LawQ: How was the combined gas law discovered? In 1834, French physicist Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron combined the old gas laws into one single law which was called combined gas law. Q: What does the combined gas law state? The combined gas law combines the four gas laws: Boyle’s Law, Charles’ Law, Gay-Lussac’s Law, and Avogadro’s law to form ideal gas law. It states that the ratio of the product of pressure and volume and the absolute temperature of a gas is equal to a constant Q: What does Boyle’s law state? Boyle’s Law states that the pressure for a gas is inversely proportional to the volume. Q: What is r in ideal gas law? R is represented by a universal gas constant. The value of R depends upon the units but is usually displayed in S.I. units, such as R = 8.314 J/mol·K. Keep ReadingAdvances in Quantum Computing Recall Einstein, Time TravelWhy the Inventors of Lithium-ion Batteries Won a Nobel PrizeEarliest Molecule after Big Bang Detected in SpaceCharles's law (also known as the law of volumes) is an experimental gas law that describes how gases tend to expand when heated. A modern statement of Charles's law is:
This relationship of direct proportion can be written as: V ∝ T {\displaystyle V\propto T} So this means: V T = k , or V = k T {\displaystyle {\frac {V}{T}}=k,\quad {\text{or}}\quad V=kT} where:
This law describes how a gas expands as the temperature increases; conversely, a decrease in temperature will lead to a decrease in volume. For comparing the same substance under two different sets of conditions, the law can be written as:
V
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T
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T
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{\displaystyle {\frac {V_{1}}{T_{1}}}={\frac {V_{2}}{T_{2}}}}
The equation shows that, as absolute temperature increases, the volume of the gas also increases in proportion. The law was named after scientist Jacques Charles, who formulated the original law in his unpublished work from the 1780s. In two of a series of four essays presented between 2 and 30 October 1801,[2] John Dalton demonstrated by experiment that all the gases and vapours that he studied expanded by the same amount between two fixed points of temperature. The French natural philosopher Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac confirmed the discovery in a presentation to the French National Institute on 31 Jan 1802,[3] although he credited the discovery to unpublished work from the 1780s by Jacques Charles. The basic principles had already been described by Guillaume Amontons[4] and Francis Hauksbee[5] a century earlier. Dalton was the first to demonstrate that the law applied generally to all gases, and to the vapours of volatile liquids if the temperature was well above the boiling point. Gay-Lussac concurred.[6] With measurements only at the two thermometric fixed points of water, Gay-Lussac was unable to show that the equation relating volume to temperature was a linear function. On mathematical grounds alone, Gay-Lussac's paper does not permit the assignment of any law stating the linear relation. Both Dalton's and Gay-Lussac's main conclusions can be expressed mathematically as: V 100 − V 0 = k V 0 {\displaystyle V_{100}-V_{0}=kV_{0}\,}where V100 is the volume occupied by a given sample of gas at 100 °C; V0 is the volume occupied by the same sample of gas at 0 °C; and k is a constant which is the same for all gases at constant pressure. This equation does not contain the temperature and so is not what became known as Charles's Law. Gay-Lussac's value for k (1⁄2.6666), was identical to Dalton's earlier value for vapours and remarkably close to the present-day value of 1⁄2.7315. Gay-Lussac gave credit for this equation to unpublished statements by his fellow Republican citizen J. Charles in 1787. In the absence of a firm record, the gas law relating volume to temperature cannot be attributed to Charles. Dalton's measurements had much more scope regarding temperature than Gay-Lussac, not only measuring the volume at the fixed points of water but also at two intermediate points. Unaware of the inaccuracies of mercury thermometers at the time, which were divided into equal portions between the fixed points, Dalton, after concluding in Essay II that in the case of vapours, “any elastic fluid expands nearly in a uniform manner into 1370 or 1380 parts by 180 degrees (Fahrenheit) of heat”, was unable to confirm it for gases. Charles's law appears to imply that the volume of a gas will descend to zero at a certain temperature (−266.66 °C according to Gay-Lussac's figures) or −273.15 °C. Gay-Lussac was clear in his description that the law was not applicable at low temperatures:
At absolute zero temperature, the gas possesses zero energy and hence the molecules restrict motion. Gay-Lussac had no experience of liquid air (first prepared in 1877), although he appears to have believed (as did Dalton) that the "permanent gases" such as air and hydrogen could be liquified. Gay-Lussac had also worked with the vapours of volatile liquids in demonstrating Charles's law, and was aware that the law does not apply just above the boiling point of the liquid:
The first mention of a temperature at which the volume of a gas might descend to zero was by William Thomson (later known as Lord Kelvin) in 1848:[7]
However, the "absolute zero" on the Kelvin temperature scale was originally defined in terms of the second law of thermodynamics, which Thomson himself described in 1852.[8] Thomson did not assume that this was equal to the "zero-volume point" of Charles's law, merely that Charles's law provided the minimum temperature which could be attained. The two can be shown to be equivalent by Ludwig Boltzmann's statistical view of entropy (1870). However, Charles also stated: The volume of a fixed mass of dry gas increases or decreases by 1⁄273 times the volume at 0 °C for every 1 °C rise or fall in temperature. Thus: V T = V 0 + ( 1 273 × V 0 ) × T {\displaystyle V_{T}=V_{0}+({\tfrac {1}{273}}\times V_{0})\times T} V T = V 0 ( 1 + T 273 ) {\displaystyle V_{T}=V_{0}(1+{\tfrac {T}{273}})} where VT is the volume of gas at temperature T, V0 is the volume at 0 °C.The kinetic theory of gases relates the macroscopic properties of gases, such as pressure and volume, to the microscopic properties of the molecules which make up the gas, particularly the mass and speed of the molecules. To derive Charles's law from kinetic theory, it is necessary to have a microscopic definition of temperature: this can be conveniently taken as the temperature being proportional to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules, Ek: T ∝ E k ¯ . {\displaystyle T\propto {\bar {E_{\rm {k}}}}.\,}Under this definition, the demonstration of Charles's law is almost trivial. The kinetic theory equivalent of the ideal gas law relates PV to the average kinetic energy: P V = 2 3 N E k ¯ {\displaystyle PV={\frac {2}{3}}N{\bar {E_{\rm {k}}}}\,}
The Wikibook School Science has a page on the topic of: Making Charles' law tubes
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