if so... wouldn't you have to decrease the temperature and increase the pressure? or would you increase both because at room temp youre at the critical point?
2006-07-23 18:50:58 · 13 answers · asked by ameliawht 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
hm...this is a toughie...would i cool it to 0 kelvins?
2006-07-23 18:55:58 · update #1
both pressure and temperature have to be decreased to make air liquid. because particles in air are well spaced and tends to stay at room temp.
2006-07-23 18:52:43 · answer #1 · answered by waz 2 · 3⤊ 4⤋
Where do you think the nitrogen in liquid nitrogen comes from?
Air is made up of 75% nitrogen.
You compress it a TON.. and it gets hot. You cool that with a heat exchanger so its normal temp at very high pressure.
Then you run it through a special insulated expansion valve, and expand it out to normal pressure. Some of it gets so cold it turns to liquid, that liquid is collected and separated.
Liquid oxygen is also useful.
The critical point of a substance is where solid, liquid, and gas simultaneously exist in a metastable state. You dont believe that nitrogen or air have a critical point anywhere remotely near STP do you?
2006-07-24 01:58:11 · answer #2 · answered by Curly 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Air as you may know is really a composition of Nitrogen gas (78%) and oxygen gas (21%) , plus 1% of extra gasses such as CO2, CO, etc.... Air as a liquid can technically happen since we do have liquid N2, and liquid 02 at ambient temperature. To make this happen you would need to bring it down the temperature and increase the pressure to facilitate things. Approaching 0K is for anything is highly improvable since all molecular motion would stop, under that definition all substances should be solid at 0K . N2 or O2 tanks at ambient temperature are highly under pressure. Now when you get both O2 and N2 together as liquids they will most likely blend into a solution since there atoms are close in size and any atomic interaction would not be a problem. For air to be a liquid you would need to reach the necessary conditions that would allow for O2 to be turned into a liquid since you need to remove more energy from O2 than from N2 to get it to its liquid state. N2 would first condensate into a liquid before O2 would. So in the process, you'll get liquid N2, with oxygen gas, eventually they'll both be liquids and mix in together once again. Hope it helped!
2006-07-24 02:11:42 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Of course. It is called LOX or liquid oxygen.
Many planes use it for the passengers.
It is created by a multistage suction device that pulls a very low vacuum that makes it very cold - 400 degrees,
This is when it goes in to the liquid state. It has to be kept in a very strong container because it builds up a lot of pressure trying to get back to SO CALLED NORMAL STATE. If U R old enough, This is how they make FREEZE DRIED COFFEE. Thay make the coffe then SUCK the moisture out of it. It is sort of like COGNAC which is WINE with the water removed. They did this in the old days to ship wine but they forgot to mention that the recievers were to add water so they drank it the way it came. Now how they got the water out & left the alcohol in I do not know.
2006-07-24 02:05:12 · answer #4 · answered by rexbahr 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sure- and the various components will liquefy as well. See reference 1. Fractional distillation (see reference 2) of the resulting liquid air will allow the individual components to be isolated. Most of this will be nitrogen (about 80%), followed by oxygen (about 20%), with part per thousand concentrations (and lower) of the noble gases, and then part per million concentrations of carbon dioxide, and lower concentrations of industrial gases such as Halons (usually in part per billion levels).
2006-07-24 01:56:38 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes.
Given the right pressure and temperature any type of gas could be liquidized. Ex. Carbon Dioxide liquidizes at - 30 degrees C (if I remember right).
2006-07-24 02:21:35 · answer #6 · answered by R G 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the air that you breath is a chemical mixture of Nitrogen and Oxygene and trace amounts of at least half a dozen chemicals.
It might be possible for "Air" to be turned into a liquid... but it would probably have to undergo a transitional stage of becoming a solid first.
2006-07-24 01:54:19 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
As far as I know, every substance can be condensed& boiled! But sometimes we need so high energy (heat) to let a substance boil or melt. Also, freezing can be a so low temp.
SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
2006-07-24 06:59:34 · answer #8 · answered by Palestini Detective 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Certainly you can. In fact, that's how liquid nitrogen is made: you liquefy the air, and boil off the oxygen.
2006-07-24 01:55:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just note that zero kelvin is thermodynamic impossibility.
2006-07-24 05:37:06 · answer #10 · answered by absolutezero 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋