Cold_Under_Here
Contributor
SeanQ:There's a good reason we use the ideal gas law; working in the conversion factors takes too much time.
While we have the neat ideal gas equation, PV=nRT the real gas equation (van der Waals equation) is more complex.
(P(real) + ((n^2)a)/V(real)^2) x (V(real) - nb) = nRT
Where a is a constant for gas reflecting the intermolecular forces and b is constant actual volume of the gas molecules.
Now remember air has two main components, oxygen gas and nitrogen gas, so we would have to do the equation twice for each partial pressure. Yeck.
Let me get some paper...![]()
Not only that, the equation gets icky when you need to calulate an unknown volume when everything else is known! One word:...iteration
love physics :14: