Pressure and the Gas Laws

In this activity you will explore the relationships between pressure, temperature, volume, and the number of
particles for a gas using an online simulator. Answer all questions and draw all graphs/diagrams in your book. You
can use Excel to aid you.

Step 1) Go to https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/gas-properties/latest/gas-properties_en.html and open up the

Part 1: Temperature

Step 1) Leave everything on the default setting (we will play more later). Click and drag the top of the pump upwards
to extend and then downward to inject our first 50 particles into our container. You can click the “Particles” box on
the right-hand side to see how many particles are currently in your container.

Note: Be careful! If you don’t pull the pump all the way to the top and all the way back down to the bottom, you will
not get 50 particles. You can also just use the large arrow button in the “Particles” box to add 50 particles in.

Question 1) in 4 or 5 sentences describe the motion that you see. Are all particles moving the same speed? What
direction are they moving in?

Particles move at random speed in random direction, particles move freely in the box and those particles collide
each other in the box
Step 2) Decrease the temperature of your particles as low as you can get it by using the “Cool” button at the bottom
of the container. From some low temperature (around 5 K), use the “Heat” button in crease the temperature.

Question 2) In 3-4 sentences, explain how the movement of the particles change as the temperature increases. How
does this relate to your definitions of temperature and heat?

As larger temperature, the particles move in faster rate at more random direction, they start to collide more with
each other in faster rate. Besides, the reasons for faster movement articles that is because of definition of heat when
there are transition energy from heater to the box and to the articles. Thus, articles have more energy to move and
in faster rate d

Part 2 – Boyle’s Law

Step 1) Click the reset button (a) in the bottom right hand corner of the simulator. Then turn on the “width”
checkbox in the top right corner (b). Finally, grab the handle (c) on the left side of the container and slide it all the
way to the left (making the container as large as it can be, or width = 15 nm)

(a) (b) (c)

Step 2) Add 50 particles to your container, but clicking the large arrow in the Particles Box (You may have to reopen
this after you click the reset button). Make a table in your notebook with the headings “Temperature”, “Width”,
“Pressure”, and “Width x Pressure”. Record the first three values and calculate the fourth.

Temperature Width Pressure Width x Pressure d

Step 3) Decrease your width by 2 nm by dragging the handle. Try not to overshoot, so move it slowly. You will notice
that both the temperature and the pressure change. Since we are only interested in the relationship between
volume and pressure, we need to keep temperature constant.

Step 4) At the bottom of the simulator, you will see a bucket labelled with “Heat” and “Cool”. Click on Cool until you
get back to your initial temperature (probably 300 K). Record your measurements in the table.

Step 5) Repeats Steps (3) and (4) until you cannot reduce the container anymore.
 Aside: Remember, this is a 2D simulation of a 3D container full of gas. Unfortunately, the simulator only lets us
control the Width, not the Volume. But imagine that the container is a prism, then the volume is
V =wA
Where ‘w’ is the width and ‘A’ is the area of the base. As long as A stays constant, we are really changing the volume.

Question 2) What do you notice about the values for “Width x Pressure”? Is there a clear pattern as you can change
the width?

Aside: It was discovered by Robert Boyle in the 17 th century that the product of pressure and volume of a gas at fixed
temperature was always constant. This has become known as Boyle’s law, and takes the form:

P1 V 1=P2 V 2

Where P1 , P2 are pressure of the gas and V 1 ,V 2are volumes of the gas at a fixed temperature.

Question 3) Using some algebra and our relation between V and w above, convince yourself that Boyle’s law implies
that the product of width x pressure in our simulation should also be constant.

Part 3 – Combined Gas Law

You will repeat Part 2 – Boyle’s Law, but this time DO NOT adjust temperature each time. Instead of a column
labelled “Width x Pressure”, you will need a column labelled “WP/T” or (width x pressure)/temperature.

Step 1) In a similar table, record the temperature, width, and pressure each time you reduce the width.

Question 1) What do you notice about the product WP/T for all your data points?

PV
Aside: It was eventually discovered that the product was constant for gasses with fixed number of particles. This
T
is known as the Combined Gas Law and takes the form

P1V 1 P2V 2
=
T1 T2

Note: This law was arrived at through the use of Charles’s Law:

V1 V2
=
T1 T2

Which you are also responsible for. Since it is difficult to manipulate V and T at constant pressure in this simulator,
we have not investigated it.

Part 4 – Ideal Gas Law

The Ideal Gas Law was the equation that emerged from the work of Boyle, Charles, and others and it related all the
relevant variables of a gas together:
 PV =nRT
Where

P is pressure (pascals)
V is volume (m3)
n is the number of moles of the gas (mol)
T is the temperature (K)
R is the gas constant (R = 8.314 mol-1K-1)

Aside on Moles: the mole is a unit of measurement used most often in chemistry. Since the number of molecules in
a given sample is often enormous, it is more practical to use some larger unit. This is similar to not using meters in
discussing the distances between galaxies – it would be ridiculous. A few definitions:

1) Mole: The SI unit for ‘amount of substance’. One mole is the amount of a substance that has the same number of
atoms as 0.012kg of Carbon-12.

2) Molar Mass: The mass of one mole of substance.

3) Avogadro’s Constant: The number of atoms in one mole = 6.02 x 10 23.

Wư

Task: Your job is to design an IA to investigate the Ideal Gas Law using this simulator. You have four different
variables that you can choose from, so think carefully about which ones you will choose.

1) Choose your variables (Independent, dependent, and control)

2) “Design your experiment”, and write a brief method.

3) Collect data (reliable and sufficient!).

4) Analyse your data (Graphs, tables, uncertainties, manipulated data, etc).

5) Conclude and evaluate.

You don’t have to write this up formally, but be sure you have dot points on how you are hitting each criterion. If I
get the sense that people in the class have not taken this task seriously, then I will collect and mark them.
Remember, next year you will have to design an IA completely from scratch – use this opportunity to think about the
design process as well as practicing your analysis and evaluation skills.