How is it possible that gases (helium especially) can leave a balloon or even a high-pressure tank over time ?
In: Chemistry
When you’re down at the atomic scale there’s no such thing as a solid object but rather atoms and molecules. The rubber in a balloon is made of long molecules which are basically chains of atoms. These are all intertwined.
Think of it like a messy mass of chains.
However there are gaps between these chains big enough to let very small things though for example helium molecules.
The main molecules in “normal” air are nitrogen (N2) oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2).
These molecules are simply too big to get through the small gaps in the molecular chains.
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