Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures
The partial pressure of an ideal gas in a mixture is equal to the pressure it would exert if it occupied the same volume alone at the same temperature. This is because ideal gas molecules are so far apart that they don't interfere with each other at all. Actual real-world gases come very close to this ideal.
A consequence of this is that the total pressure of a mixture of ideal gases is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the individual gases in the mixture as stated by Dalton's law. For example, given an ideal gas mixture of nitrogen (N2), hydrogen (H2) and ammonia (NH3):
| where: | |
| = total pressure of the gas mixture | |
| = partial pressure of nitrogen (N2) | |
| = partial pressure of hydrogen (H2) | |
| = partial pressure of ammonia (NH3) |
Read more about this topic: Partial Pressure
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