– I am not wrapping my head around partial pressure – according to wikipedia:
“the notional [pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure) of that constituent gas if it alone occupied the entire [volume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume) of the original mixture at the same [temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature)”
does it mean the pressure of the existing quantity of constituent gas if all other gases were removed from the given volume? Not the pressure if you were to fill that space to capacity with the gas?
In: Physics
It’s how much a given gas contributes to the overall pressure.
If you have, say, a container at 10 psig with a mix of N2, O2, and CO2, then if the partial pressure of N2 were, say, 3 psig, then that would mean 3 of the 10 total psig of pressure is due to the nitrogen. Or put another way, if you removed all the O2 and CO2 and just left the same amount of N2 in the same sized container at the same temperature, it pressure of that container would only be 3 psig.
> Not the pressure if you were to fill that space to capacity with the gas?
Gases spread out to fill the shape of their containers. You can’t *not* fill that space to capacity with gas, which is why it’s more helpful to measure gas in moles or pressure rather than volume.
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