Real gases – as opposed to a perfect or ideal gas – exhibit properties that cannot be explained entirely using the ideal gas law. To understand the behaviour of real gases, the following must be taken into account:
- compressibility effects;
- variable specific heat capacity;
- van der Waals forces;
- non-equilibrium thermodynamic effects;
- issues with molecular dissociation and elementary reactions with variable composition.
For most applications, such a detailed analysis is unnecessary, and the ideal gas approximation can be used with reasonable accuracy. On the other hand, real-gas models have to be used near the condensation point of gases, near critical points, at very high pressures, and in other less usual cases.
Famous quotes containing the words real and/or gas:
“Your real statesman is first of all, and chief of all, a great human being, with an eye for all the great fields on which men like himself struggle, with unflagging, pathetic hope, toward better things.... He is a guide, a counselor, a mentor, a servant, a friend of mankind.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Man moves in all modes, by legs of horses, by wings of winds, by steam, by gas of balloon, by electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own element.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)