Amedeo Avogadro | Biography, Law, Discoveries, & Facts

Amedeo Avogadro was an Italian physicist who studied gas volume, pressure, and temperature. He lived from August 9, 1776, to July 9, 1856. He developed Avogadro’s law, which asserts that all gases contain the same number of molecules per volume at the same temperature and pressure. Avogadro is now regarded as a key figure in the development of atomic theory.

Biography 

Amedeo Avogadro, born in Turin, Italy, on the 9th of August in 1776. His aristocratic ancestors were his forefathers. Filippo, his father, was a Count who served as a magistrate and senator. Anna Vercellone of Biella, his mother, was a noblewoman.

From his father, Amedeo Avogadro gained the title of Count. In truth, Count Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro di Quaregna e di Cerreto was Amedeo Avogadro’s entire name.

Avogadro was a brilliant mathematician. He received his PhD in canon law in 1796, when he was only 20 years old, and began practising as an ecclesiastical lawyer.

Even though he had followed in his family’s footsteps by studying law, he progressively lost interest in the subject. Science, he discovered, was far more intellectually fascinating.

Avogadro was a down-to-earth, private man who was quietly religious, despite his aristocratic status. He was a hard worker who lived a humble existence. Felicita Mazzé was his wife’s name.

 Avogadro theory regarding Mole 

The Avogadro number is the numerical representation of the Avogadro constant in reciprocal mole, a dimensionless number. The Avogadro number is denoted as N or N0 in older literature, representing the number of particles contained in one mole, which is exactly 6.02214076×1023.

The Avogadro constant is selected so that the mass from one mole of a chemical substance in grammes is numerically equal to the average volume of one molecule of a compound in daltons (global atomic mass units); each dalton being 1/12 of such mass with one carbon-12 atom, that is roughly the mass with one nucleon (proton/neutron). 

One molecule of water, for example, has an average mass of 18.0153 daltons, and one mole of water (i.e. N molecules) has an average mass of 18.0153 grams. The Avogadro constant NA is the proportionality factor that connects a substance’s molar mass to the average mass of a single molecule and the Avogadro number, which is the approximate number of nucleons in a single gramme of ordinary matter.

Avogadro Law 

Avogadro published a study in the French Journal of Physics, Journal de Physique, in 1811. According to him, the best explanation for Gay-findings Lussac’s gas reactions is that all gases at the same temperature and pressure contain equal amounts of molecules. Avogadro’s law was named after him. When he was teaching physics at the College of Vercelli, he published it.

According to Avogadro’s (right) theory, two litres of hydrogen gas react with a litre of oxygen gas to generate just two litres of gaseous water, which is that the volume reduces as the number of particles present drops. As a result, the chemical reaction must be as follows:

               2H2 (gas) O2 (gas) → 2H20 (gas)

In this reaction, three particles (two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule) combine to generate two water particles or 200 particles combined with 100 to make 200 particles.

Alternatively, 2 million particles react with 1 million particles to produce 2 million particles, and so on. After the process, when all of the hydrogen and oxygen gases have combined to form H20 gas, the volume of the gas reduces to two-thirds of its initial volume.

Avogadro was the first scientist to understand that elements could exist as molecules rather than individual atoms due to these observations. For example, he noticed that the oxygen we breathe is a molecule made up of two oxygen atoms bonded together.

Amedeo Avogadro Discoveries 

Avogadro is best known for his eponymous gas law, which states that at the same temperature and pressure, identical quantities of gas have the same number of molecules. Avogadro’s hypothesis was not widely accepted until 1858. It was accepted only after Stanislao Cannizzaro, an Italian chemist, (two years after Avogadro’s death) was able to explain why there were some exceptions to organic chemicals to Avogadro’s hypothesis.

Cannizzaro assisted Avogadro in clarifying some of his concepts, such as his perspective on the link between atoms and molecules. He also calculated several compounds’ molecular (atomic) weights to provide empirical proof.

Avogadro’s most important achievement was clarifying the confusion between atoms and molecules (albeit he didn’t use the name “atom”). Avogadro believed that particles were made up of molecules and that molecules were made up of even simpler units (which we now call “atoms”). 

In recognition of Avogadro’s theories, the number of molecules in a mole (one-gramme molecular weight) was named Avogadro’s number (also known as Avogadro’s constant). The number 6.023×1023 molecules per gram-mole have been determined experimentally.

Conclusion

Amedeo Avogadro, an Italian physicist and one of the inventors of physical chemistry, was born in 1776. Avogadro examined the properties of electricity and liquids, but his work with gases was the most well-known. By 1809, it had been established that when all gases are heated to the same temperature, they expand by the same amount. Avogadro went on to say that if two equal quantities of gas were at the same temperature and pressure, they would contain the same number of particles, which may be atoms or molecules. 

This remark, now known as Avogadro’s law, was first published in 1811 but did not gain widespread acceptance until the 1850s. He was the first to distinguish between a substance’s molecules and atoms. According to Avogadro’s law, one molar volume of any gas has the same number of molecules, 6.02252 1023, often known as Avogadro’s number—or a mole.