ABSTRACT
Many mixtures of gases are of thermodynamic importance. For example, atmospheric air is principally a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen with some water vapor. The products of combustion from power plants and internal combustion engines are also mixtures of gases that are of interest. From the simple kinetic considerations of Chapter 1, it was possible to deduce an equation of state to relate the pressure, temperature, and volume of a gas. This
particular equation, pv = RT, formed the basis of most of the work in Chapter 6. As we have remarked several times, it is surprising that so simple an equation can represent real gases with any degree of accuracy. The success of this equation for a single gas leads us to hope that mixtures of gases can be represented equally well by an equally simple equation of state. To some extent, this hope is realized for some real gaseous mixtures, but for others, it has not been possible to write a simple p, v, T relation in terms of the properties of the individual components of the mixture. By use of semiempirical methods, it has been found possible to correlate experimental p, v, T data for some gases, but no single method of correlation has yet been devised to correlate all gaseous mixtures satisfactorily.
