Boyle’s Law

In this unit, you will learn the Gas Law known as  Boyle’s Law. This law along with some other well known gas laws are important because they allow you to predict how gas will react if you change its temperature or pressure.

These laws have been used for centuries to describe gases and predict their properties. Most importantly, you’ll see how gas laws can be used to answer questions about the properties of gases that are difficult or impossible to observe. In addition, you’ll learn some of the strange behaviour of gases that can be hard to follow without some background knowledge of physics.

Gas laws:

The gas laws are the most fundamental laws of thermodynamics. They describe how the energy levels of atoms and molecules change with temperature, pressure, and chemical environment. They also describe how these change when a system moves from one state to another. These laws are often used to predict the properties of a material when it is under certain conditions. 

In this article, we will discuss the Significance of Boyle’s Law.

Boyle’s Law:

Boyle’s law is an important thermodynamic principle that describes the relationship between the pressure and temperature of a gas proportional to the increase in the volume of the gas. The principle can be stated simply as follows: The pressure and temperature of an ideal gas are inversely proportional to each other. This means that as the pressure of a gas is increased, its temperature is decreased, and as the temperature of a gas is increased, its pressure is decreased. This statement is what constitutes Boyle’s law.

Statement of the Law

Boyle’s law describes the relationship between a gas’s pressure and volume at a constant temperature. The volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the pressure of a gas at a constant temperature.

The equation for Boyle’s law formula is:

V ∝ 1/P

Or

P ∝ 1/V

Or

PV = K1

V represents the gas volume, P represents the gas pressure, and K1 represents the constant. Boyle’s Law can be used to calculate the current pressure or volume of a gas and is also known as:

P1V1 = P2V2

The mathematical expression of Boyle’s law:

The mathematical expression of Boyle’s Law is a constant pressure and constant volume, which can be expressed as P V = k, where P is pressure, V is volume, and k is a constant. This means that for constant pressure, a constant volume must be maintained. This Law can be seen in the illustration of a column of air, where the pressure at the base increases as the column expands, while the pressure at the top remains constant. This demonstrates that as the volume of a substance increases, the pressure within the substance also increases.

Boyle’s Law is a statement of the relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas, which can be written as the constant pressure of gas multiplied by the constant volume of gas. The law is often written as P1V1 = P2V2, where P1 is the pressure, V1 is the volume, P2 is the pressure of the gas, V2 is the volume of the second gas, and n is the constant of proportionality. 

Derivation and Boyle’s law formula

According to Boyle’s Law, any change in the volume filled by a gas (at constant quantity and temperature) results in a difference in its pressure. Put another way, the product of a gas’s initial pressure and volume equals the product of the gas’s final pressure and final volume (at constant temperature and number of moles). This Law can be mathematically represented as follows:

P1V1 = P2V2

Here,

P1 refers to the gas’s starting pressure.

V1 is the gas’s initial volume of occupancy.

P2 refers to the gas’s ultimate pressure.

The final volume filled by the gas is V2.

Boyle’s law formula suggests a pressure-volume connection, which may be used to get this phrase. PV = k for a certain quantity of gas at constant temperatures. Therefore,

P1V1 = k (initial pressure * initial volume)

P2V2 = k (final pressure * final volume)

∴ P1V1 = P2V2

When a gas’s container volume decreases, the equation can be used to predict the increase in pressure exerted by the gas on the container walls (and its quantity and absolute temperature remain unchanged).

Conclusion:

Experiments and observations in physics have led to four fundamental principles that describe how gases behave: the Law of Boyle, the Law of Charles, Avogadro’s Law, and the Law of Gay-Lussac. The experiments and observations described in this section have led to gas laws. These laws are most useful in explaining the behaviour of gases under constant pressure and constant temperature. We’ve further discussed Boyle’s Law and its mathematical expression that is P1V1 = P2V2.