Van der Waal equation

Boyle s law At constant temperature the volume of a given mass of gas is inversely proportional to the pressure. Although exact at low pressures, the law is not accurately obeyed at high pressures because of the finite size of molecules and the existence of intermolecular forces. See van der Waals equation. 

Dieterici s equation A modification of van der Waals equation, in which account is taken of the pressure gradient at the boundary of the gas. It is written... 

On compression, a gaseous phase may condense to a liquid-expanded, L phase via a first-order transition. This transition is difficult to study experimentally because of the small film pressures involved and the need to avoid any impurities [76,193]. There is ample evidence that the transition is clearly first-order there are discontinuities in v-a plots, a latent heat of vaporization associated with the transition and two coexisting phases can be seen. Also, fluctuations in the surface potential [194] in the two phase region indicate two-phase coexistence. The general situation is reminiscent of three-dimensional vapor-liquid condensation and can be treated by the two-dimensional van der Waals equation (Eq. Ill-104) [195] or statistical mechanical models [191]. 

Van der Waals Equations of State. A logical step to take next is to consider equations of state that contain both a covolume term and an attractive force term, such as the van der Waals equation. De Boer [4] and Ross and Olivier [55] have given this type of equation much emphasis. 

It must be remembered that, in general, the constants a and b of the van der Waals equation depend on volume and on temperature. Thus a number of variants are possible, and some of these and the corresponding adsorption isotherms are given in Table XVII-2. All of them lead to rather complex adsorption equations, but the general appearance of the family of isotherms from any one of them is as illustrated in Fig. XVII-11. The dotted line in the figure represents the presumed actual course of that particular isotherm and corresponds to a two-dimensional condensation from gas to liquid. Notice the general similarity to the plots of the Langmuir plus the lateral interaction equation shown in Fig. XVII-4. 

Ross and Olivier [55], in their extensive development of the van der Waals equation of state model have, however, provided a needed balance to the Langmuir picture. 

In 1873, van der Waals [2] first used these ideas to account for the deviation of real gases from the ideal gas law P V= RT in which P, Tand T are the pressure, molar volume and temperature of the gas and R is the gas constant. Fie argried that the incompressible molecules occupied a volume b leaving only the volume V- b free for the molecules to move in. Fie further argried that the attractive forces between the molecules reduced the pressure they exerted on the container by a/V thus the pressure appropriate for the gas law isP + a/V rather than P. These ideas led him to the van der Waals equation of state ... 

The importance of the van der Waals equation is that, unlike the ideal gas equation, it predicts a gas-liquid transition and a critical point for a pure substance. Even though this simple equation has been superseded, its... 

It is interesting to note that, when the van der Waals equation for a fluid. 

Real gases follow the ideal-gas equation (A2.1.17) only in the limit of zero pressure, so it is important to be able to handle the tliemiodynamics of real gases at non-zero pressures. There are many semi-empirical equations with parameters that purport to represent the physical interactions between gas molecules, the simplest of which is the van der Waals equation (A2.1.50). However, a completely general fonn for expressing gas non-ideality is the series expansion first suggested by Kamerlingh Onnes (1901) and known as the virial equation of state ... 

Flere b corresponds to the repulsive part of the potential, which is equivalent to the excluded volume due to the finite atomic size, and a/v corresponds to the attractive part of the potential. The van der Waals equation... 

Although the exact equations of state are known only in special cases, there are several usefid approximations collectively described as mean-field theories. The most widely known is van der Waals equation [2]... 

The parameters a and b are characteristic of the substance, and represent corrections to the ideal gas law dne to the attractive (dispersion) interactions between the atoms and the volnme they occupy dne to their repulsive cores. We will discnss van der Waals equation in some detail as a typical example of a mean-field theory. 

This is the well known equal areas mle derived by Maxwell [3], who enthusiastically publicized van der Waal s equation (see figure A2.3.3. The critical exponents for van der Waals equation are typical mean-field exponents a 0, p = 1/2, y = 1 and 8 = 3. This follows from the assumption, connnon to van der Waals equation and other mean-field theories, that the critical point is an analytic point about which the free energy and other themiodynamic properties can be expanded in a Taylor series. 

Figure A2.3.3 P-Visothemis for van der Waals equation of state. Maxwell s equal areas mle (area ABE = area ECD) detemiines the volumes of the coexisting phases at subcritical temperatures.

The nth virial coefficient = < is independent of the temperature. It is tempting to assume that the pressure of hard spheres in tln-ee dimensions is given by a similar expression, with d replaced by the excluded volume b, but this is clearly an approximation as shown by our previous discussion of the virial series for hard spheres. This is the excluded volume correction used in van der Waals equation, which is discussed next. Other ID models have been solved exactly in [14, 15 and 16]. ... 

The equation of state detemiined by Z N, V, T ) is not known in the sense that it cannot be written down as a simple expression. However, the critical parameters depend on e and a, and a test of the law of corresponding states is to use the reduced variables T, and as the scaled variables in the equation of state. Figure A2.3.5 bl illustrates this for the liquid-gas coexistence curves of several substances. As first shown by Guggenlieim [19], the curvature near the critical pomt is consistent with a critical exponent (3 closer to 1/3 rather than the 1/2 predicted by van der Waals equation. This provides additional evidence that the law of corresponding states obeyed is not the fomi associated with van der Waals equation. Figure A2.3.5 (b) shows tliat PIpkT is approximately the same fiinction of the reduced variables and... 

The high-temperatiire expansion, truncated at first order, reduces to van der Waals equation, when the reference system is a fluid of hard spheres. 

A2.5.3 ANALYTIC TREATMENT OF CRITICAL PHENOMENA IN FLUID SYSTEMS. THE VAN DER WAALS EQUATION... 

Although later models for other kinds of systems are syimnetrical and thus easier to deal with, the first analytic treatment of critical phenomena is that of van der Waals (1873) for coexisting liquid and gas [. The familiar van der Waals equation gives the pressure p as a fiinction of temperature T and molar volume F,... 

The problem with figure A2.5.6 and figure A2.5.7 is that, because it extends to infinity, volume is not a convenient variable for a graph. A more usefiil variable is the molar density p = 1 / V or the reduced density p. = 1 / Fj. which have finite ranges, and the familiar van der Waals equation can be transfonned into an alternative although relatively unfamiliar fonn by choosing as independent variables the chemical potential p and the density p. 

Although the previous paragraphs hint at the serious failure of the van der Waals equation to fit the shape of the coexistence curve or the heat capacity, failures to be discussed explicitly in later sections, it is important to recognize that many of tlie other predictions of analytic theories are reasonably accurate. For example, analytic equations of state, even ones as approximate as that of van der Waals, yield reasonable values (or at least ball park estmiates ) of the critical constants p, T, and V. Moreover, in two-component systems... 

With these simplifications, and with various values of the as and bs, van Laar (1906-1910) calculated a wide variety of phase diagrams, detennining critical lines, some of which passed continuously from liquid-liquid critical points to liquid-gas critical points. Unfortunately, he could only solve the difficult coupled equations by hand and he restricted his calculations to the geometric mean assumption for a to equation (A2.5.10)). For a variety of reasons, partly due to the eclipse of the van der Waals equation, this extensive work was largely ignored for decades. 

Flalf a century later Van Konynenburg and Scott (1970, 1980) [3] used the van der Waals equation to derive detailed phase diagrams for two-component systems with various parameters. Unlike van Laar they did not restrict their treatment to the geometric mean for a g, and for the special case of b = hgg = h g (equalsized molecules), they defined two reduced variables. 

Figure A2.5.11. Typical pressure-temperature phase diagrams for a two-component fluid system. The fiill curves are vapour pressure lines for the pure fluids, ending at critical points. The dotted curves are critical lines, while the dashed curves are tliree-phase lines. The dashed horizontal lines are not part of the phase diagram, but indicate constant-pressure paths for the T, x) diagrams in figure A2.5.12. All but the type VI diagrams are predicted by the van der Waals equation for binary mixtures. Adapted from figures in [3].

The previous seetion showed how the van der Waals equation was extended to binary mixtures. However, imieh of the early theoretieal treatment of binary mixtures ignored equation-of-state eflfeets (i.e. the eontributions of the expansion beyond the volume of a elose-paeked liquid) and implieitly avoided the distinetion between eonstant pressure and eonstant volume by putting the moleeules, assumed to be equal in size, into a kind of pseudo-lattiee. Figure A2.5.14 shows sohematieally an equimolar mixture of A and B, at a high temperature where the distribution is essentially random, and at a low temperature where the mixture has separated mto two virtually one-eomponent phases. 

The leading tenn in equation (A2.5.17) is the same kind of parabolic coexistence curve found in section A2.5.3.1 from the van der Waals equation. The similarity between equation (A2.5,5t and equation (A2.5.17) should be obvious the fomi is the same even though the coefficients are different. 

For T shaped curves, reminiscent of the p, isothemis that the van der Waals equation yields at temperatures below the critical (figure A2.5.6). As in the van der Waals case, the dashed and dotted portions represent metastable and unstable regions. For zero external field, there are two solutions, corresponding to two spontaneous magnetizations. In effect, these represent two phases and the horizontal line is a tie-line . Note, however, that unlike the fluid case, even as shown in q., form (figure A2.5.8). the symmetry causes all the tie-lines to lie on top of one another at 6 = 0 B = 0). 

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