The volume occupied by one mole of a substance is its molar volume. The ideal gas law, PV = nRT, suggests that the volume of a given quantity of gas and the number of moles in a given volume of gas vary with changes in pressure and temperature. At standard temperature and pressure, or STP (273.15 K and 1 atm), one mole of an ideal gas (regardless of its identity) has a volume of about 22.4 L — this is referred to as the standard molar volume.

Although gaseous molecules travel at tremendous speeds (hundreds of meters per second), they collide with other gaseous molecules and travel in many different directions before reaching the desired target. At room temperature, a gaseous molecule will experience billions of collisions per second. The mean free path is the average distance a molecule travels between collisions. The mean free path increases with decreasing pressure; in general, the mean free path for a gaseous molecule will be...

Thus far, the ideal gas law, PV = nRT, has been applied to a variety of different types of problems, ranging from reaction stoichiometry and empirical and molecular formula problems to determining the density and molar mass of a gas. However, the behavior of a gas is often non-ideal, meaning that the observed relationships between its pressure, volume, and temperature are not accurately described by the gas laws.

Consider the oxidation of sulfur dioxide:

The ideal gas law is an approximation that works well at high temperatures and low pressures. The van der Waals equation of state (named after the Dutch physicist Johannes van der Waals, 1837−1923) improves it by considering two factors.
First, the attractive forces between molecules, which are stronger at higher densities and reduce the pressure, are considered by adding to the pressure a term equal to the square of the molar density multiplied by a positive coefficient a. Second, the volume...

Gas behavior plays a vital role in understanding bodily processes such as external and internal respiration. External respiration involves the diffusion of oxygen into the blood and carbon dioxide out of it in the lungs. In contrast, internal respiration happens in body tissues, where these gases move in opposite directions.
Gas Laws Governing Respiration
The behavior of gases is guided by Dalton's Law of partial pressures and Henry's Law.
Dalton's Law asserts that the total pressure exerted by...