The volume of a gas is 93 mL when the temperature is 91°C. If the temperature is reduced to 0°C without changing the pressure, what is the new volume of the gas?

1 Answer
Mar 31, 2016

If we assume ideality, then we can use the ideal gas law:

PV=nRT

where:

  • P is the pressure in bar, let's say.
  • V is the volume in L.
  • n is the number of mols of gas
  • R is the universal gas constant, which will be, based on our units, 0.083145 Lbar/molK.
  • T is the temperature in units of K.

You can simply remember this equation instead of trying to remember all the smaller ones (Boyle's, Charles' and Gay-Lussac's laws, and Avogadro's Principle), and derive what you need.

We are looking at a change in volume due to a change in temperature, as stated in the question, and we assume that the pressure did NOT change.

Since n and R cannot change, that covers all of the variables that might or might not change, so we have closure knowing that we've accounted for all the variables.

Then, suppose we solve for V. If we then assign V1 to the initial volume and V2 to the final volume, we get the corresponding T1 and T2, but since P1=P2, we can still call it P.

V1=nRT1P
V2=nRT2P

Now, if we want to find V2, we can divide these and solve for V2.

V2V1=nRT2PnRT1P=T2T1

Therefore:

V2=V1T2T1

So, you can use this formula to solve for V2. Therefore, you should get:

V2

=0.093 L×(0 + 273.15 K91 + 273.15 K)

0.070 L