Ideal Gas Law

PHYS 2LB: Lab 1

Ideal Gas Law
(Includes Pre-Lab Assignment)

Objectives

These lab activities will focus on the concepts of the Ideal Gas Law to describe the
relationship between pressure, volume, the number of atoms or molecules in a
gas, and the temperature of a gas. You should read all the steps in each part
before you start. Work in your assigned groups and maintain a collaborative and
communicative team.

Introduction

The Ideal Gas Law is an idealization because it assumes an “ideal” gas. An ideal
gas consists of atoms that do not interact and that occupy zero volume – it is an
idealized hypothetical model for studying the physics and chemistry of gases, but
it turns out to work pretty well to model real gases as well. A real gas consists of
atoms or molecules (or both) that have finite volume and interact by forces of
attraction or repulsion due to the presence of charges.

A gas is a physical state of matter in which there is a massive separation between

atoms and molecules, as compared to other states like liquids and solids. Gases
will expand to fill their container to maintain the separation between
atoms/molecules. This results in the gases exerting force on the walls of their
containers by means of continual collisions with the surface (think about what
happens when you blow up a balloon). The force exerted per unit area of the
container is termed pressure. If the volume of a container holding a gas sample is
increased, the molecules may be expected to spend a larger portion of their time
traveling through the interior. Therefore, they will strike the walls of the container
less frequently, so the pressure should decrease. Decreasing the volume of the
container should have the opposite effect on pressure.

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Molecules of a gas at a high temperature have higher kinetic energy than

molecules of the same gas at a lower temperature. Hence the molecules of a high
temperature gas move at higher speeds than molecules of the same gas at a
lower temperature. Molecules moving at high speed will exert more force on the
walls of the container than the same molecules moving at lower speeds, thus a
high temperature gas has a higher pressure than the same gas at a lower
temperature.

The behavior of a gas depends on several properties: pressure 𝑃, volume 𝑉,

temperature 𝑇, and the amount of gas 𝑛. These variables are related to each
other by an equation of state called the Ideal Gas Law:
𝑃𝑉 = 𝑛𝑅𝑇 (1)

where, 𝑅 is the Universal Gas Constant, 𝑅 = 8.31 𝐽/(𝑚𝑜𝑙 ∙ 𝐾)

Most gases near room temperature and pressure (~20 ºC and 101 kPa) can be
approximated as an “Ideal Gas”. An Ideal Gas must consist of an extremely
large number of particles. It is convenient to express the amount of gas in a
given volume in the term of moles, n. One mole of a material contains
6.02x1023 particles. This number is known as Avogadro’s number 𝑁𝐴 :

Experimental Apparatus:
The apparatus (shown below) is a plastic syringe, a pressure sensor, and a
temperature sensor. The end of the syringe is hooked up to a white plastic air-
tight connector, the other end of which is connected to the pressure sensor.
The sensor plugs into the 850 Interface to transmit data to the computer.

Figure 1: Ideal Gas Law Apparatus

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1. Constant Temperature Experiments

1.1: From the desktop, open the Capstone template associated with this week’s
experiments. The template has four tabs for various parts of this lab. Start
on the tab called “Part I” in the top left of the screen. You should see a
single plot with pressure vs. time plotted on one vertical axis and
temperature vs. time plotted on the other vertical axis.

1.2: Disconnect the white plastic pressure coupler from the sensor (this allows
you to change the volume of air in the syringe). Move the plunger on the
syringe such that it is at 50 mL. This is your initial volume of gas. After
setting the initial volume, reconnect the pressure sensor.

NOTE: Damage to the pressure and temperature sensor may occur if the syringe is
connected to the coupler while trying to fill the syringe with air.

1.3: In Capstone, click to begin to recording data. Slowly compress the

plunger on the syringe to a position that you can comfortably hold and
keep compressed. Record the value of volume from the markings on the
syringe as your final volume.

1.4: Monitor the pressure and temperature on the computer screen and
continue to hold the plunger until the values stay constant. This should take
about 15 seconds.

1.5: Once the temperature and pressure values have stabilized, release the
plunger. Again, monitor the graphs until the values become constant. Once
constant, click to stop data collection.

1.6: The initial pressure of the gas is the pressure before you compressed the air
from the initial volume and the gas was at room temperature. Read this
initial pressure from the Pressure vs. Time graph by:

1.6.1: If your graph is not scaled properly to show your data, click to
auto-scale the axes. You can also manually scale your graph by
clicking and dragging the axes.
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1.6.2: In the graph toolbar (shown below for your reference), click to
open a box that can highlight a portion of your data.

Note: If this button is greyed out ( ), it is because you need to

select a data set prior to pulling up a box to highlight data, as each
such box is keyed to a specific data set. Do this by simply clicking on
your Pressure data in the graph.
1.6.3: Drag and resize the box to the portion of your data corresponding to
the initial pressure on the graph.
1.6.4: Click from the graph toolbar to toggle the statistics tool. Once the
curve fit is toggled, the icon will be highlighted . Click on the little
arrow next to the icon to open the statistics tool’s menu, select
“Mean” and “Standard Deviation.” Record these values in your data
and notebook as Pi and its uncertainty.
Note: Technically the Standard Deviation is an overestimate of your
uncertainty. Your true uncertainty in this case is the standard
deviation, 𝜎, divided by the square root of the number of data points
𝜎
included, or . Capstone, however, does not provide a simple way
√𝑁
count 𝑁 with the statistics tool, so we will stick with this
overestimate in the physics labs.

1.7: Repeat step 1.6 to read the initial and final temperatures from the
Temperature vs. Time graph. Record these values in your data notebook as
Ti and Tf, respectively.

1.8: In the toolbar, click on the camera icon ( ) to take a screenshot of your
graph. This will save a copy of your graph to a Capstone journal. At the end
of the lab, we will print the workbook but we will add some more data first.

NOTE: You may need to click on the graph to activate the screenshot button.

1.9: You now have six variable values: initial volume, initial pressure, initial
temperature, final volume, final pressure, and final temperature. In your
notebook, calculate the number of initial moles (ni) and the number of final
moles (nf). Remember to use SI units during your calculations.

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Q1: Do your initial and final number of moles value agree with one another (i.e.
did the total amount of gas change from before-to-after the experiment)?

Q2: Do the values agree within experimental uncertainty?

1.10: Repeat steps 1.2-1.9, but this time use an initial volume of 60mL.

Q3: Did the number of moles, n, increase by the amount you expected with this
new initial volume compared to the old initial volume?

2. Volume Change Experiments

2.1: At the top of the Capstone display, click the tab labeled “Part II” to open
the next page for the experiment. You should see a digits display and a plot
of pressure vs. time.

2.2: Disconnect the white plastic pressure couple from the sensor (this allows
you to change the volume of air in the syringe). Adjust the plunger on the
syringe until you have 50 mL of air inside. Then reconnect the couple to the
sensor.

2.3: Begin recording data ( ). Slowly compress the plunger on the syringe to
45mL and hold it at this position. Watch the temperature on the digits
display and wait until the temperature stabilizes.

2.4: Once the temperature on the digits display stabilizes at room temperature,
continue to compress the plunger on the syringe to 40mL and hold until the
temperature on the digits display stabilizes.

2.5: Repeat step 2.4 for syringe volumes compressed to 35mL, 30mL, and 25mL.
Remember to wait until the temperature reaches close to room
temperature before moving to the next measurement.

2.6: Click to stop recording data.

2.7: Sketch your graph in your notebook.

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2.8: Use the “multi-coordinate tool” to identify the pressure values in your
Pressure vs. Time graph at each of the 5 measured volumes. Record these
values in your data notebook. Remember to convert each value to the
proper SI units.

2.9: At the top of the central display, click the tab labeled “Data Analysis 50mL”
to open the next page for the experiment. Copy your values for volume and
pressure into the data table. Remember to use data with the correct units!
The inverse of the pressure (Inverse Pressure = 1/P) will be calculated
automatically for you.

2.10: In the Volume vs. 1/P graph, click from the graph toolbar to toggle
curve fitting. Once the curve fit is toggled, the icon will be highlighted .
Click on the little arrow next to the icon to open the curve fit menu, select
“linear”.

2.11: Click on your graph and take a snapshot like in step 1.8.

2.12: Use the slope of your linear fit, the room temperature, and the Ideal Gas
Law to calculate the number of moles in the syringe. Remember to use SI
units in your calculations.

Q4: Does your value of moles calculated in step 2.11 agree with the initial and
final mole values you calculated in your initial experiment in Part I? Why or
why not?

2.13: Repeat steps 2.1 – 2.12, but this time with an initial volume of 60mL and
taking it down to 30mL. You can use the “Part II” tab to record your initial
data, but this time use the “Data Analysis 60mL” tab to find your linear fit.

Q5: Did the number of moles increase by the amount you expected with this
new initial volume compared to the old initial volume?

2.14: Open your Capstone journal by selecting in the toolbar next to the
screenshot button. The journal will open on the right side of your display.
Click on the print button inside the journal display at the right of the screen.

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Write a short summary discussing today’s activities. In it, please discuss:

• Why is the ideal gas law an important relation? What is an “ideal gas”?
• In what physical systems can the ideal gas law be assumed to be valid? In
what physical systems will the ideal gas law be invalid? Why?
• Discuss the importance of the universal gas constant. Where else might this
constant be useful? Why? (Hint: Think about energy)

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Pre-Lab Assignment (1 point)

1. Consider 2.5 moles of an ideal gas, which undergoes the process shown in
the PV diagram below. Make sure you are mindful of units when you are
performing this problem.

a) What is the temperature of the gas (in Kelvin) at point A? What is the
temperature (in Kelvin) of the gas at point B?

b) On the PV diagram, place at least three more points that have the same
temperature as point A.

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PHYS 2LB: Lab 1