How to claculate value of universal gas constant?

1 Answer
Jan 8, 2017

You must do an experiment in which you measure the values of P, V, n, and T.

Explanation:

The Ideal Gas Law is

color(blue)(bar(ul(|color(white)(a/a) PV = nRTcolor(white)(a/a)|)))" "

where

P = the pressure
V = the volume
n = the number of moles
R = the Universal Gas Constant
T = the temperature

We can rearrange the Ideal Gas Law to get

R = (PV)/(nT)

If you do an experiment in which you measure the values of P, V, n, and T, you can insert these values into the equation and calculate R.

For example, repeated experiments show that at standard temperature and pressure (273.15 K and 1 bar), 1 mol of gas occupies 22.711 L.

You can use this information to evaluate R.

R = (PV)/(nT) = ("1 bar" × "22.711 L")/("1 mol × 273.15 K") = "0.083 145 L·atm·K"^"-1""mol"^"-1"

If you use strictly SI units, then pressure is measured in pascals and volume is measured in cubic metres.

R = (PV)/(nT) = (1.013 25 × 10^5 color(white)(l)"Pa" × 22.414× 10^"-3"color(white)(l) "m"^3)/"1 mol × 273.15 K" = "8.3145 Pa·m"^3"K"^"-1""mol"^"-1"

Always make sure that you use the value of R corresponding to the units that you are using for P and V.