High School Chemistry : Gases and Gas Laws

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for High School Chemistry

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Example Questions

Example Question #8 : Using The Ideal Gas Law And Combined Gas Law

Below is the ideal gas law.

What does each letter of the ideal gas law represent?

Possible Answers:

P: potential energy
V: velocity
n: moles
R: ideal gas constant
T: total energy

P: pressure
V: volume
n: moles
R: rate
T: time

P: pressure
V: volume
n: moles
R: ideal gas constant
T: temperature

P: pressure
V: volume
n: moles
R: ideal gas constant
T: time

None of these

Correct answer:

P: pressure
V: volume
n: moles
R: ideal gas constant
T: temperature

Explanation:

The ideal gas law is used to identify values in a given state (for the values of pressure, volume, number of moles, and temperature) for an ideal, hypothetical gas. Because no gases are truly ideal, this only works as an approximation, and some gases are more ideal than others.

Example Question #9 : Using The Ideal Gas Law And Combined Gas Law

A gas in a  container is at STP. How many moles of gas are in the container?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

First we need to remember what STP means since it's important. This is "standard temperature and pressure".  Because we are looking for the number of moles we need the ideal gas law.

At STP we will take the temperature to be  and the pressure to be . Solving for the number of moles gives

Notice that the units of the gas constant R mean we must have a volume in liters. The volume was given in mL and therefore had to be converted.

Example Question #6 : Using The Ideal Gas Law And Combined Gas Law

A gas at STP has a volume of . The gas is compressed to  and heated to . What is the new pressure of the gas in atm?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We have a lot going on in this problem. Since both temperature and volume change and we want to know the final pressure, the combined gas law will be used:

Since the gas is at STP to start we know the pressure () and the temperature (). Standard pressure has multiple values depending on the units, but we want pressure in atm for our final answer so we will choose the appropriate value and units for STP. Solving for the final pressure gives:

Plugging in everything gives:

We expect that raising the temperature will increase the pressure as well as reducing the volume. Since both actions will increase the pressure we must have a final pressure greater than the initial pressure.

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