Question #c925d

1 Answer
May 21, 2017

"100 kPa"100 kPa

Explanation:

The idea here is that the volume of a gas is Inversely proportional to its pressure when the number of moles of gas and the temperature of the gas are kept constant -> think Boyle's Law here.

This basically means that when the volume of a gas decreases, its pressure increases by the same factor.

"volume" darr implies "pressure" uarrvolumepressure

Mathematically, this is expressed using the following equation

color(blue)(ul(color(black)(P_1V_1 = P_2V_2)))

Here

  • P_1 and V_1 represent the pressure and volume of the gas at an initial state
  • P_2 and V_2 represent the pressure and volume of the gas at a final state

In your case, the volume is decreasing

"50 cm"^3 " " darr " " "20 cm"^3

so you should expect the pressure of the gas, which would be P_2, to increase as a result

"0.49346 atm" " "uarr " " P_2

Rearrange the equation to solve for P_2

P_1V_1 = P_2V_2 implies P_2 = V_1/V_2 * P_1

Plug in your values to find

P_2 = (50color(red)(cancel(color(black)("cm"^3))))/(20color(red)(cancel(color(black)("cm"^3)))) * "0.49346 atm"

P_2 = "1.23365 atm"

Finally, to convert this to kPa, use the fact that

"1 atm = 101.325 kPa"

You will end up with

1.23365 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("atm"))) * "101.325 kPa"/(1color(red)(cancel(color(black)("atm")))) = "125 kPa" = color(darkgreen)(ul(color(black)("100 kPa")))

The answer must be rounded to one significant figure, the number of sig figs you have for the two volumes.