Real Life Applications for Gas Laws

Gas laws are used to give soda a fizz.

Gases react much more dramatically to changes in the environment than solids and liquids. Gas laws that predict these changes are often taught as part of the core curriculum of a high school chemistry education. Most of these laws were discovered hundreds of years ago. The information from these equations are used in many common household products in just about every sector.

Identification

The gas laws of Avogadro, Charles, Boyle and Gay-Lussac are usually just combined into one equation called the ideal gas law, although several others exist, according to Wolfram Research. The gas laws explain the effects of pressure, volume and absolute temperature on a theoretically perfect gas without any attractive forces between its molecules, Georgia State University's Physics Department reports.

Considerations

Real life applications for gas laws use estimations from these equations to predict how gases behave under real world conditions at normal temperature and pressure, Purdue's Chemistry Department reports. Although no ideal gas exists, the ideal gas laws can predict the behavior of a real world gas within 5 percent. At extreme temperatures and pressure, the ideal gas law requires the addition of a van der Waals constant that accounts for the attraction between molecules of a gas.

Types

The real world applications for gas laws are almost too many to name and each product tends to use a few particular gas laws. Gas laws are often used to design propellants in cans because gas pressure can build up and then have a controlled release, ScienceClarified reports. Other types of uses can include safety devices and even transportation.

Common Uses

The average can of soda makes use of Henry's law, which states that a dissolved gas is proportional to the partial pressure above the solution, according to ScienceClarified. For soda, which uses carbon dioxide, when the bottle is opened, gas escapes, and the dissolved carbon rises to the top and escapes, hence the "popping" sound. In cars, gases are ignited to produce the combustion that turns engine pistons.

Effects

Some common products are known to save lives, but they can also pose a health hazard. Airbags use Charles' law--which states that volume is directly proportional to volume--to ignite a gasoline and air mixture that inflates an airbag in less than a second. The Michigan State Police report that airbags can reduce serious head injuries by up to 75 percent. On the other hand, a increase in temperature can cause aerosol cans to explode, ScienceClarified reports. This is especially dangerous for aerosol cans in landfills on hot days.

References

• Science World: Ideal Gas Law
• Georgia State University Department of Physics: Ideal Gas Law
• Purdue University: Deviations from Idal Gas Law Behavior

Resources

• Science Clarified: Gas Laws - Real-life Applications
• Michigan State Police: Airbag Statistics