NextPrevious

Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Energy Is Everything

What effects cause deviations from the ideal gas law?

Deviations from the ideal gas law occur due to intermolecular forces between the gas particles as well as the fact that gas particles do actually occupy volume. There is a modified version of the ideal gas law (see “Atoms and Molecules”), called the van der Waals equation of state, that uses constants specific to each molecule or atom to adjust for these factors. Deviations from ideal gas law behavior become more important at relatively high pressures and/or low temperatures.