Molecular Properties of Gases
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The Atomic nature of matter: |
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The atoms are building blocks of matter. Anything that takes up space is made of atoms. And
there
are more than 110 different kinds of atoms. About 90 kinds of atoms occur naturally and
others
occur only in the laboratory. Out of all the kinds of atoms some of them are the atoms of
solid
substances, some are the atoms of liquid substances and some belong to the gaseous
substances.
There are four phases of matter: (i) Solid,
(ii) Liquid, (iii) Gas, and (iv) Plasma.
In case of the
solid phase, the atoms are held tight with each other. In case of liquid, the atoms are free to slide
over other atoms and in gas phase the atoms are free to move since they are loosely packed with
each other. In plasma state, no complete atoms are available and there are positive ions and free
electrons existing. The plasma state is the most common form in the universe.
The atoms consist of three basic subatomic particles. These particles are the proton, the
neutron, and the electron. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have zero charge and the
electrons have negative charge. Protons and neutrons have the mass nearly same as that of the
hydrogen atom, whereas the electrons have the mass about 1800 times smaller than that of a
hydrogen atom. The protons and neutrons exist in the nucleus of an atom whereas the electrons
revolve around the nucleus in different shells.
The atoms combine to form molecules. The atomic form of matter is not always the stable
form to exist in nature. However, the molecular form is the relatively stable form of matter. For
example, the oxygen exists in nature in diatomic form. The volume of the molecules is negligible
when compared with the volume of the container. And, the molecules are considered to be
identical for a pure gas.
The atoms or molecules in gas phase of matter move very fast and randomly. This type of
motion is called Brownian motion. However, any molecule can move in any direction with equal
probability. The distribution of speed does not change with time despite the collisions between
the molecules.
The collision of the molecules with each other and with the walls of the container is elastic in
nature. Thus, the kinetic energy and momentum both are constant. And, the forces between the
molecules are negligible except during a collision. However, the forces are of short range.
Although the ideal gases are the mono-atomic gases, the behavior of molecular gases can be
approximated to that of ideal gases. Even the behavior of the molecular gases is better at low
pressure.
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