Why must only SI units be used when making calculation using the ideal gas equation?
7 Answers
- Anonymous5 months ago
Why must?
the short answer is you don't.
- billrussell42Lv 76 months ago
you can use any units you want as long as you use the value of the gas constant that applies to those units.
reference has a list of 20 or so values for R, including ones with temp in rankine, and volume in cubic feet.
- ZirpLv 76 months ago
So people from around the world can read and understand what you calculated and noted
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- L. E. GantLv 76 months ago
Primarily because that's the way it is taught. The equation still holds, but the units are very different. and the arithmetic is a bit trickier, even though the same equation still holds.
Imperial (or English) units can be used as in:
- electron1Lv 76 months ago
The constant R is 22.4 liters divided 273˚K
R = 22.4 ÷ 273
This is approximately 0.08205. 22.4 is the number of liters of one mole of a gas at standard temperature and pressure.
P * V = n * R * T
P is in atmospheres. V is in liters. n is the number of moles. T is the temperature in ˚K. If we used different units, the value of the ideal gas constant would have to be different.
- D gLv 76 months ago
probably the reason is the formulas are writen that way ..
Kelvin temps re used because they are all positive
land the pressures hve to apply to the pressure of the equation so the result is accurate to the data given and the result wanted ..
I agree with billrussell. You can use any number of units for P, V and T, as long as you've got R defined in those units. The atmosphere (atm) isn't an SI unit and we use it all the time. The SI unit for pressure is the pascal.