Experimental Values
It is extremely difficult to generalize at what pressures or temperatures the deviation from the ideal gas becomes important. As a rule of thumb, the ideal gas law is reasonably accurate up to a pressure of about 2 atm, and even higher for small non-associating molecules. For example methyl chloride, a highly polar molecule and therefore with significant intermolecular forces, the experimental value for the compressibility factor is at a pressure of 10 atm and temperature of 100 °C. For air (small non-polar molecules) at approximately the same conditions, the compressibility factor is only (see table below for 10 bars, 400 K).
Read more about this topic: Compressibility Factor
Famous quotes containing the words experimental and/or values:
“Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.”
—Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974)