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Ideal Gas laws

Zianya Edith Galindo Guevara A01752603
Energy and transformation I
Group 03
PrepaTec Estado de México
Thursday November 17,2022
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Ideal gas laws

During this core activity, the ideal gas laws will be addressed as the main topic. Firstly, the term
“Ideal gas laws” must be defined. An ideal gas is composed of moving particles that do not interact
with each other and do not have a volume. With this said, it is important to say that they also do not
have attraction or repulsion between them. “Gases in general behave ideally when they are at high
temperatures and low pressures. This is due to the decrease in intermolecular forces.” (Materia, 2019)
The experiment was selected because during the day, people use things that involve the pressure, but
they do not know how they work like in the kitchen supplies, airplanes or even just in the air. This last
example is the one that the experiment will be focusing on.

The ideal gas laws have a dependent variable and independent variable. In this case, the
independent variable is the volume. This is since the person who is doing the experiment can decide
the volume with the syringe. Meanwhile, the dependent variable is pressure inside the syringe
because it derives from the volume that the person is controlling.

The ideal gas laws have a general equation which is:

𝑃𝑉 = 𝑛𝑅𝑇

The origin of these formula goes back to the middle of the 17th century, when the relation
between the pressure and the volume of the air turned out to be inversely proportional, and the
expression that confirms this is Boyle’s law.

There are three laws about the ideal gases:

- Boyle law: the gases work in a constant way and there is an inverse relationship between
the pressure and volume.
P1 V 1=P2 V 2

- Charles law: the pressure is constant and there is a relationship between the temperature and
the volume.
V1 V2
=
T1 T2
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- Gay-Lussac: the volume is constant, and the relationship is between the pressure
and temperature.
P 1 P2
=
T1 T 2
For this core activity, the specific law that will be used is the Boyle one:

Experiment

For this experiment, you will need:

- Small marshmallows

- Syringe (the size will depend on the size of the marshmallows; the marshmallows need to be
able to fit in the syringe)

The first step is to take the syringe and carefully take out the needle. Then fully take out the
plunger. Then you will put a marshmallow at the end of the syringe (you can do this using a pen or
a stick. You will put the plunger on the syringe again. By now you should cover the bottom hole
(where the needle is supposed to go) and then take out the plunger carefully.

After the first step, you need to swap the marshmallow for a new one. Before you put the
plunger in again, cover the bottom hole with your finger, and now you can introduce the plunger.
Write the differences between the first marshmallow and the second one. At this point, you are
able to eat the marshmallow or throw them away. You need to be careful with the way that you
discard the syringe and the needle.

Figure 1: Flow chart of the experiment

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The experiment previously explained was carried out. The first thing to do was look
for the materials that were needed, like the different sizes of the marshmallows and a syringe
that was big enough to fit the marshmallows.

Figure 2: Materials for the experiment

After getting all the materials, it is time to run the experiment previously explained.
While running the experiment, it is important to start making a table in MS Excel to save
some time. There are three columns. The first one indicates how many times the experiment
has been repeated. The second one is the independent variable. Which in this case is the
volume and it says the units of the measurements were taken. And the third one is the
dependent variable, that is pressure, and right here the pressure that was taken is mmHg
(millimeters of mercury).
Volume Pressure
No.
[ml] [mmHg]
1 4 570.42
2 6 507.04
3 7 434.605714
4 5 456.336
5 6 253.52
6 4 380.28
7 5 608.448
8 2 1140.84
9 3 1267.6
10 3 1014.08
11 2 1521.12
12 1 2281.68
13 2 1901.4
14 5 1064.784
15 5 912.672
Figure 3: Table of x and y of the dependent and independent variables.
To calculate the pressure after running the experiment,
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it was needed to clear up P2 in the formula for the Boyle law P1 V 1=P2 V 2, getting as a result
( P1 ) ( V 1 )
the following P2= . That was how the pressure in Figure 2 was obtained. It is
V2
important to take into consideration that 𝑃1 was taken as a constant, which means that the
same pressure was used to do all the calculations for volume 2. To obtain P1, it was just a
thing of looking up at the “weather” app on the cellphone and scrolling down up to the part
that said “pressure”. At the moment that the experiment was made, the pressure was 1,014
hPa (hectopascal). It was needed to make a unit conversion from hPa to mmHg, giving as a
result 760.56 mmHg. So, with that said, P1 was a constant of 760.56 mmHg. Meanwhile, V 1
was obtained just by measuring it with the syringe.

Figure 4: Example of how the volume was measured before running the experiment.

Figure 5 and 6: Example of how the volume was measured after running the

experiment.

After getting the table with the 15 measurements of the dependent and independent
variable (figure 2) it was time to get a scatterplot with the data, and the regression that best
fits the data and the equation.
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Volume [ml] vs Preassure

[mmHg]
2500
f(x) = 2724.21564718267 x^-0.972100535003569
2000 R² = 0.688111802579396

Preassure [mmHg]
1500
1000
500
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Volume [ml]

Figure 7: Scatterplot with regression and equation.

Analyzing the scatterplot, it can be seen that the curve doesn’t fit very well. Previously, it was said
that the formula used to get the volume belongs to the Boyle Law. And looking up for how a graphic
Boyle should look, they are very similar. And the equation is close to 1 because x is elevated to -0.972.

Figure 8-9: Example of a Boyle graph compared to the one obtained with the data.

Finally, a comparison between the characteristic equation and the regression one. The regression
equation is different since it is taking an average of P1∧V 1 because V 1 is not a constant. So, in the
denominator, it is just the V 2 elevated to the uncertainty. Also, the equation obtained was a potential, this
equation was the best that fitted the Boyle equation diagram. At the end it can be seen that passing the
variable at the negative power to a variable with a positive power the equation is similar to the general
Boyle equation.

Characteristic equation Regression equation

P1 V 1 −0.972 2724.2
P2= P2=2724.2 ( V 2 ) = 0.972
V2 V2
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Finally, some limitations that could be seen during the execution of the experiment were: that fact
that the pressure inside the syringe could only be measured with a manometer. Or, as the way it was done
here, cleaning up P2. Also, some improvement areas were the fact of repeating the experiment several
times, this was because sometimes the syringe wasn’t full covered making the marshmallow stayed as its
initial volume. While the experiment was being executed, measuring the volume of the marshmallow
sometimes it was not done correctly, after noting this, the experiment needed to be repeated several
times.

Something that could be improved was the data analysis, finding the best fit curve was hard, but
analyzing it was even harder because no similarities were found at first. It was needed to do a little an
analysis to make sure the equation was good. As it can be seen, the curve does not fit the values well. It
was needed to see why that equation was correct. Also, it could be improved the fact of what to do with
the marshmallows after the experiment. Because after doing the experiment approximately twenty-five
times, the people who were eating the marshmallows were full. So, the candy had to be saved.

The experiment was a good way to see what happens to the objects when they are at too many
pressures or at a low pressure. A lot was learned while executing the experiment, although there were
some issues while developing the experiment, it turned out well.
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Resources

Anna. (2021, June 11). What Is A 3-Part Syringe? Retrieved September 3, 2022, from Kmed-
Leading infusion set manufacturer,disposable medicals supplier website:
https://www.kmedhealth.com/what-is-a-3-part-syringe/
Ideal Gas Law. (2018). Retrieved September 3, 2022, from Jove.com website:
https://www.jove.com/es/v/5537/ideal-gas- law?language=Spanish#:~:text=La%20historia
%20de%20la%20ley,de%20Boyle%20(ecuaci%C 3%B3n%201)%20.
Materia, T. (2019, July 31). Leyes de los gases: cuáles son y sus fórmulas (con ejemplos).
Retrieved September 3, 2022, from Toda Materia website:
https://www.todamateria.com/leyes-de-los- gases/
UDIE “Gases ideales” 1. Introducción. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://arquimedes.matem.unam.mx/DescartesBasico/udies/UDIE_0_Gas_Ideal.pdf