I’m hoping someone can help me understand this concept.
So according to Boyle’s Law, pressure and volume are indirectly proportional
P1V1=P2V2
With that in mind when pressure goes up, volume goes down. Why does the opposite happen when you are decreasing pressure in an Oxygen tank?
I’m thinking it has to do with the release of the gas but is there a different formula that calculates the remaining volume when you are decreasing the PSI on the gauge?
Or am I using the equation incorrectly.
In: Physics
That relationship only holds when no gas enters or leaves the system. An oxygen tank is a fixed volume, so if the pressure gauge reading goes down some of the oxygen is leaving.
You can however say that if the pressure has gone down by a certain percentage , the total number of molecules of gas has reduced by that factor, ie. that your cylinder has lost that percentage of its contents. That is using the Ideal Gas Equation PV = nRT where n is the number of moles of gas and R is the gas constant (8.314 J /K.mole)
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