Why is helium closest to an ideal gas

As a result, the volume occupied by the molecules becomes significant compared with the volume of the container. Consequently, the total volume occupied by the gas is greater than the volume predicted by the ideal gas law.

Moreover, all molecules are attracted to one another by a combination of forces. These forces become particularly important for gases at low temperatures and high pressures, where intermolecular distances are shorter.

Attractions between molecules reduce the number of collisions with the container wall, an effect that becomes more pronounced as the number of attractive interactions increases. At very high pressures, the effect of nonzero molecular volume predominates. Nonzero molecular volume makes the actual volume greater than predicted at high pressures; intermolecular attractions make the pressure less than predicted.

At high temperatures, the molecules have sufficient kinetic energy to overcome intermolecular attractive forces, and the effects of nonzero molecular volume predominate. Conversely, as the temperature is lowered, the kinetic energy of the gas molecules decreases. Eventually, a point is reached where the molecules can no longer overcome the intermolecular attractive forces, and the gas liquefies condenses to a liquid. The Dutch physicist Johannes van der Waals —; Nobel Prize in Physics, modified the ideal gas law to describe the behavior of real gases by explicitly including the effects of molecular size and intermolecular forces.

In his description of gas behavior, the so-called van der Waals equation,. The volume term corrects for the volume occupied by the gaseous molecules. The correction for volume is negative, but the correction for pressure is positive to reflect the effect of each factor on V and P , respectively.

Because nonzero molecular volumes produce a measured volume that is larger than that predicted by the ideal gas law, we must subtract the molecular volumes to obtain the actual volume available. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Hydrogen and Helium ideal gas behavior in room temperature Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 7 months ago. Active 3 months ago. Viewed 5k times. So, can someone please give me an idea how my thinking is wrong?.

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