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what is the significance of ideal gas equation?

what is the significance of ideal gas equation?

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Raheema Javed
156 Points
9 years ago
PV = nRT
This equation is called the ideal gas law. It relates the four independent properties of a gas at any time. The constant R is called the ideal gas law constant. Its value depends on the units used to express pressure and volume.
The ideal gas law is used like any other gas law, with attention paid to the unit and making sure that temperature is expressed in Kelvin. However, the ideal gas law does not require a change in the conditions of a gas sample. The ideal gas law implies that if you know any three of the physical properties of a gas, you can calculate the fourth property.

The ideal gas law can also be used in stoichiometry problems. ‘
The ideal gas law can also be used to determine the densities of gases. Density, recall, is defined as the mass of a substance divided by its volume:
d=m/V
Assume that you have exactly 1 mol of a gas. If you know the identity of the gas, you can determine the molar mass of the substance. Using the ideal gas law, you can also determine the volume of that mole of gas, using whatever the temperature and pressure conditions are. Then you can calculate the density of the gas by using
density=molarmass/molarvolume

Breathing
Breathing (more properly called respiration) is the process by which we draw air into our lungs so that our bodies can take up oxygen from the air. Let us apply the gas laws to breathing.

Start by considering pressure. We draw air into our lungs because the diaphragm, a muscle underneath the lungs, moves down to reduce pressure in the lungs, causing external air to rush in to fill the lower-pressure volume. We expel air by the diaphragm pushing against the lungs, increasing pressure inside the lungs and forcing the high-pressure air out. What are the pressure changes involved? A quarter of an atmosphere? A tenth of an atmosphere? Actually, under normal conditions, it’s only 1 or 2 torr of pressure difference that makes us breathe in and out.

258-2142_ball-fig06_006.jpg
Breathing involves pressure differences between the inside of the lungs and the air outside. The pressure differences are only a few torr.

A normal breath is about 0.50 L. If room temperature is about 22°C, then the air has a temperature of about 295 K. With normal pressure being 1.0 atm, how many moles of air do we take in for every breath? The ideal gas law gives us an answer:
(1.0atm)(0.50L)=n(0.08205L⋅atmmol⋅K)(295K)
Solving for the number of moles,
we get n = 0.021 mol air
This ends up being about 0.6 g of air per breath—not much but enough to keep us alive.

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