Factors Affecting Gas Pressure – When talking about the pressure of matter, be it liquids, solids, or gases, it must be included in the discipline of physics. Yep, physics is a science that prioritizes experiments and formulas to measure the results.
In everyday life, we often encounter various kinds of substances, such as solids, liquids, and gases. If we describe each of these substances, liquids are substances that have a liquid form such as oil, water, oil, syrup, and others. Then, there are also solid substances that have a hard and solid shape, for example a table. While gaseous substances are substances whose form is gas or air, for example a balloon being blown.
Each substance that has a different shape when subjected to pressure from several factors, the results will be different. This is because basically, both liquids, solids, and gases have different characteristics from one another.
Then, what are the factors that influence gas pressure? What is the most basic difference of the three substances?
So that You can understand this, let’s look at the following review!
Factors Affecting Gas Substance Pressure
Please note, pressure is a force acting perpendicularly on a plane divided by the area of that plane. Well, here are the factors that affect the presence of pressure on gaseous substances, namely:
- gas volumes
- Changes in the magnitude of the temperature around it
Gas/Air Pressure
As with solids and liquids, gases, of course, also have pressure. Gas/air pressure is a pressure that moves air masses within a certain unit area. An instrument that can be used to measure air pressure is called a barometer.
The unit for air pressure is millibars (mb). So, the amount of air pressure will be inversely proportional to the height from a place. The higher the place, the lower the air pressure. The opposite is true.
There is an experiment to see if there is pressure in gaseous substances, namely by using a glass filled with water and HVS paper.
The trick is to invert the glass filled with water on the HVS paper. When the glass is turned over, we can see that the HVS paper will hold the water in the glass.
This can happen because the HVS paper gets pressure from the outside air which is greater than the pressure of the water in the glass.
Take a look at the illustration of the following gas pressure!
Look at the following illustration!
If you put an Erlenmeyer filled with hot water and it has been tightly closed with a rubber balloon into cold water, the rubber balloon will be pressed into the Erlenmeyer. This is due to the presence of heat in the gas particles in the Erlenmeyer which propagates towards the cold water.
The movement of the gas particles will be slower until they finally shrink. This shrinkage causes the gas pressure in the Erlenmeyer to be lower than the gas pressure outside. As a result, the rubber balloon will enter the Erlenmeyer due to the gas pressure from outside.
This principle can also be used to inflate a hot air balloon. Yep, the large air balloon can fly because the total density of the air balloon is lower than the density of the air around it.
The density of this hot air balloon will be controlled by changes in temperature in the air in the balloon. Later, there is a pilot whose job is to control the air temperature in the balloon using the combustion engine located under the balloon hole.
When the embers from the combustion engine heat the air in the balloon, the weight of the balloon will become smaller than the upward force, so the balloon can move upwards. Keep in mind that hot air is lighter than cold air. Meanwhile, the upward force on the balloon is equal to the weight of the cold air displaced by the balloon.
If the hot air balloon wants to go down, the combustion engine will reduce or stop heating the air inside the balloon, so that the air temperature inside the balloon can decrease.
Differences in the Properties of Solids, Liquids, and Gases
| Solid | Liquid | Gases |
| Has a fixed shape and volume | Has a certain volume, but the shape is not fixed, depending on the media or place used | Does not have a certain volume and shape |
| The distance between the particles is very tight and regular | The distance between the particles is more tenuous and the arrangement is not regular | The distance between the particles is very tenuous and the arrangement is not regular |
| The particles cannot move freely | The particles can move, but are limited | The particles can move very freely |
| The attractive forces between the particles are strong | The attractive forces between the particles are not very strong | The attractive force between the particles is very weak |
Expansion of Gases
All substances, whether solid, liquid or gas, will experience expansion. Expansion is the process of increasing the size (volume) of a material that has a fixed mass.
Well, an example of the expansion of a gas is a balloon that suddenly explodes. Why does a balloon that has been inflated suddenly explode?
The answer is because there is expansion of the gas in the balloon as a result of increasing temperature.
Apart from balloons, there are also other examples of gas expansion, namely a vehicle tire that suddenly explodes. As with a balloon, a vehicle tire that is filled with air too full will experience an increase in temperature, so that the gas in the tire will expand and cause the tire to explode.