Gases and Plasmas

Definition

Gas is an air like fluid substance which expands freely to fill any space
available, irrespective of its quantity.

Plasma is a form of matter in which many of the electrons wander around

freely among the nuclei of the atoms. Plasma has been called the fourth state
of matter.

GAS

PLASMA

Gases as well as liquids flow; hence, both are called fluids. The primary
difference between a gas and a liquid is the distance between molecules. In a
gas, the molecules are far apart and free from cohesive forces that dominate
their motions when in liquid and solid phases. Their motions are less
restricted. A gas expands indefinitely and fills all space available to it. Only
when the quantity of gas is very large, do gravitational forces limit the size or
determine the shape of the mass of a gas.

DEFINITION OF TERMS:

Dissipate- disperse or scatter

Altitude- or height; is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up"

direction, between a reference datum and a point or object

Bumble- move or act in an awkward or confused manner, to stagger

Gas density- a characteristic property of a gas. The gas density is the

relationship between the mass of the substance and how much space it takes
up (volume).

The ATMOSPHERE

The thickness of our atmosphere is determined by two competing factors: the

kinetic energy of its molecules, which tends to spread the molecules apart; and
gravity, which tends to hold them near the earth. If somehow the earths gravity
were shut off, atmospheric molecules would dissipate and disappear. Or if gravity
acted but the molecules moved too slowly to form a gas, our atmosphere would be
a liquid or solid layer, just so much more matter lying on the ground. There would
be nothing to breathe. Again, no atmosphere.

The ATMOSPHERE

But our atmosphere is a happy compromise between energetic molecules

that tend to fly away and gravity holds them back.

Without the heat of the sun, air molecules would lie on earths surface the
way settled popcorn lies at the bottom of a popcorn machine. But add heat to

the popcorn and to atmospheric gases, and both will bumble their way up to
higher altitudes.

Molecules in the air move at speeds of about 1600kph and bumble up to

many kilometers in altitude.

The ATMOSPHERE

The exact height of the atmosphere has no real meaning, for the air gets
thinner and thinner the higher one goes. Eventually, it thins out to emptiness
interplanetary space. Even in the vacuous regions of interplanetary space,
however, there is a gas density of about 1 molecule per cubic centimeter.

Scan figure 13.1

WHAT IS THE MOST PLENTIFUL ELEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE?

-more plentiful than any other element, making up about 3/4 the mass of the
universe.

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON ELEMENT ON EARTH?

Makes up about 47% of the earths mass.

ATMOSPHERIC pressure

Atmospheric pressure is defined as the force per unit area exerted against a
surface by the weight of the air above that surface.

DEFINITION OF TERMS:

Burgermeister- is chairman of the executive council (or cabinet) in many

towns and cities in Germany. In France, the person is called a mairie. In the
Netherlands the person is called the burgermeester.

ATMOSPHERIC pressure

We live at the bottom of an ocean of air. The atmosphere, much like the water
in a lake, exerts pressure. One of the most celebrated experiments
demonstrating the pressure of the atmosphere was conducted in 1654 by
Otto von Guericke, burgermeister of Magdeburg and inventor of the vacuum
pump.

Otto von guericke

-produced a vacuum by using a suction pump to remove the water from a

sealed wooden cask. Understandably, the cask leaked air in from the outside
as the water was withdrawn, indicating the need to use glass or metal
systems. The subsequent collapse of an imperfectly-formed vacuum vessel
led him to conclude that the spherical shape was the most desirable one for
withstanding a pressure difference. The drawing at the right shows the
pumping of water from a spherical vessel to produce a vacuum. Eventually,
he developed a pump which removed the air directly from the vessel, using

air as the working fluid for the pump in place of the water formerly thought to
be necessary.

VACUUM PUMP

The diagram of the double-barrel air pump at the right dates from 1832, but
was an old-fashioned design for the time. The valves V and V' allow a certain
fraction of the air remaining in the receiver to enter the pump barrel as the
piston is drawn up, and to be expelled as the piston goes down. The geared
wheel W is rotated alternately left and right to actuate each cylinder in turn.
The mercury barometer MH indicates the degree of exhaustion of the
receiver.
If the effects of outgassing are ignored, the ultimate pressure that could be
reached depends on the largest and smallest volumes of the pump barrel, the
volume to be exhausted, and the number of pumping cycles used. The very
best pump in the 1887 Queen catalogue gave an ultimate pressure of about
0.002 atm. A modern mechanical pump should go to pressures 100 times
lower than this.

MAGDEBURG HEMISPHERES

ATMOSPHERIC pressure

Just as water pressure is caused by the weight of water, atmospheric pressure

is caused by the weight of air. We have adapted so completely to the
invisible air that we sometimes forget it has weight. The reason we dont feel
this weight crushing against our bodies is that the pressure inside our bodies
equals that of the surrounding air. There is no net force for us to sense.

ATMOSPHERIC pressure

The pressure of the atmosphere is not uniform. Besides altitude variations,

there are variations in atmospheric pressure at any one locality due to
moving fronts and storms. Measurement of changing air pressure is important
to meteorologists when predicting weather.

Densities of various gases

Barometers

Instruments used for measuring the pressure of the atmosphere are called
barometers. A simple mercury barometer is shown on the left side.

Barometers

A glass tube, longer than 76 cm and closed at one end, is filled with mercury
and tipped upside down in a dish of mercury. The mercury in the tube runs
out of the submerged open bottom until the level in the tube is 76 cm above
the level in the dish. The empty space trapped above, except for some
mercury vapor, is a vacuum. The vertical height of the mercury remains
constant even when the tube is tilted, unless the top of the tube is less than

76 cm above the level in the dish in which case the mercury completely fills
the tube.

Why does mercury behave this way? The explanation is similar to the reason
a simple seesaw will balance when the weights of people at its two ends are
equal. The barometer balances when the weight of liquid in the tube exerts
the same pressure as the atmosphere outside.

Barometers

If the atmospheric pressure increases, then the atmosphere pushes down

harder on the mercury and the column is pushed higher than 76 cm. the
mercury is literally pushed up into the tube of a barometer by the weight of
the atmosphere.

What happens in a barometer is similar to what happens during the process

of drinking through a straw. By sucking, you reduce the air pressure in the
straw that is placed in a drink. The weight of the atmosphere on the drink
pushes liquid up into the reduce-pressure region. Strictly speaking, the liquid
is not sucked up; it is pushed up by the atmosphere. If the atmosphere is
prevented from pushing on the surface of the drink, as in the party trick
bottle with the straw through the air-tight cork stopper, one can suck and
suck and get no drink.

If you understand these ideas, you can understand why there is a 10.3-meter
limit on the height that water can be lifted with vacuum pumps.

BOYLES LAW

Boyle's law states that at constant temperature for a fixed mass, the
absolute pressure and the volume of a gas are inversely proportional. The
law can also be stated in a slightly different manner, that the product of
absolute pressure and volume is always constant.

P 1/V

BOYLES LAW

The air pressure inside the inflated tires of an automobile is

considerably more than the atmospheric pressure outside. The density of air
inside is also more than the density of the air outside. To understand the
relation between pressure and density, think of the molecules of air inside the
tire, which behave like tiny Ping Pong balls perpetually moving helter-skelter
and banging against the inner walls. Their impacts produce a jittery force that
appears to our coarse senses as a steady push. This pushing force averaged
over a unit of area provides the pressure of the enclosed air.

Boyles law applies to ideal gases.

Buoyancy of air

Chemists, and other people who do careful weighing, know that we live at the
bottom of a sea of air, and that a buoyant force equal to the weight of
the air displaced by our bodies acts upward on us. Alas, the density of air is
small, and the buoyant force is also small.

Buoyancy of air

All air particles in the atmosphere are drawn by the downward force of
gravity. But the pressure in the air creates an upward force working opposite
gravity's pull. Air density builds to whatever level balances the force of
gravity, because at this point gravity isn't strong enough to pull down a
greater number of particles.

This pressure level is highest right at the surface of the Earth because the air
at this level is supporting the weight of all the air above it -- more weight
above means a greater downward gravitational force. As you move up
through levels of the atmosphere, the air has less air mass above it, and so
the balancing pressure decreases. This is why pressure drops as you rise in
altitude.

This difference in air pressure causes an upward buoyant force in the air all
around us. Essentially, the air pressure is greater below things than it is
above things, so air pushes up more than it pushes down. But this buoyant
force is weak compared to the force of gravity -- it is only as strong as the
weight of the air displaced by an object. Obviously, most any solid object is
going to be heavier than the air it displaces, so buoyant force doesn't move it
at all. The buoyant force can only move things that are lighter than the air
around them.

For buoyancy to push something up in the air, the thing has to be lighter than
an equal volume of the air around it. The most obvious thing that is lighter
than air is nothing at all. A vacuum can have volume but does not have mass,
and so, it would seem, a balloon with a vacuum inside should be lifted by the
buoyancy of the air around it. This doesn't work, however, because of the
force of surrounding air pressure. Air pressure doesn't crush an inflated
balloon, because the air inside the balloon pushes out with the same force as
the outside air pushing in.

A vacuum, on the other hand, doesn't have any outward pressure, since it
has no particles bouncing against anything. Without equal pressure balancing
it out, the outside air pressure will easily crush the balloon. And any container
strong enough to hold up to the air pressure at the earth's surface will be
much too heavy to be lifted by the buoyant force.

Another option would be to fill the balloon with air that is less dense than the
surrounding air. Because the air in the balloon has less mass per unit of
volume than the air in the atmosphere, it would be lighter than the air it was
displacing, so the buoyant force would lift the balloon up. But again, fewer air
particles per volume means lower air pressure, so the surrounding air

pressure would squeeze the balloon until the air density inside was equal to
the air density outside.

Bernoullis principle

In fluid dynamics, Bernoulli's principle states that for an inviscid flow of a nonconducting fluid, an increase in the speed of the fluid occurs simultaneously
with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy. The
principle is named after Daniel Bernoulli who published it in his
book Hydrodynamica in 1738.

Bernoulli's principle can be applied to various types of fluid flow, resulting in

what is loosely denoted as Bernoulli's equation. In fact, there are different
forms of the Bernoulli equation for different types of flow. The simple form of
Bernoulli's principle is valid for incompressible flows (e.g. most liquid flows
and gases moving at low Mach number). More advanced forms may in some
cases be applied to compressible flows at higher Mach numbers (see the
derivations of the Bernoulli equation).

Bernoulli's principle can be derived from the principle of conservation of

energy. This states that, in a steady flow, the sum of all forms of energy in a
fluid along a streamline is the same at all points on that streamline. This
requires that the sum of kinetic energy, potential energy and internal
energy remains constant. Thus an increase in the speed of the fluid implying
an increase in both its dynamic pressure and kinetic energy occurs with a
simultaneous decrease in (the sum of) its static pressure, potential energy
and internal energy. If the fluid is flowing out of a reservoir, the sum of all
forms of energy is the same on all streamlines because in a reservoir the
energy per unit volume (the sum of pressure and gravitational
potential g h) is the same everywhere.

Mark this statement true or false: Atmospheric pressure increases in a gale,

tornado, or hurricane. If you answered true, sorry; the statement is false.
High-speed winds may blow the roof off your house, but the pressure within
the winds is actually less than for still air of the same density inside the
house. As strange as it may first seem, when the speed of a fluid increases,
the internal pressure decreases. This is true whether the fluid is a gas or
liquid.

Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss scientist of the 18 th century, studied the relationship

of fluid speed and pressure. When a fluid flows through a narrow constriction,
its speed increases. This is easily noticed by the increased speed of a garden
hose when you narrow the opening of the nozzle. Bernoulli wondered how the
fluid got the energy for this extra speed. He reasoned that it is acquired at
the expense of a lowered internal pressure.

His discovery, now called Bernoullis Principle, states: When the speed of a
fluid increases, pressure in the fluid decreases.

Bernoulli's principle

PLASMA

PLASMA

In addition to solids, liquids, and gases, there is a fourth phase of matter, the
least common phase in our everyday environment plasma (not to be
confused with the clear liquid part of blood, also called plasma).

A plasma is an electrified gas. The atoms and molecules that make it up are
positively ionized, stripped of one or more electrons, with a corresponding
number of free electrons. Recall that a neutral atom has as many positive
protons inside the nucleus as it has negative electrons outside the nucleus.

In laboratories on earth, a plasma is often created by heating a gas to very

high temperatures, making it so hot that electrons are boiled off the atoms.

A plasma is a hot ionized gas consisting of approximately equal numbers of

positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. The characteristics
of plasmas are significantly different from those of ordinary neutral gases so
that plasmas are considered a distinct "fourth state of matter." For example,
because plasmas are made up of electrically charged particles, they are
strongly influenced by electric and magnetic fields, while neutral gases are
not. An example of such influence is the trapping of energetic charged
particles along geomagnetic field lines to form the Van Allen radiation belts.
In addition to externally imposed fields, such as the Earth's magnetic field or
the interplanetary magnetic field, the plasma is acted upon by electric and
magnetic fields created within the plasma itself through localized charge
concentrations and electric currents that result from the differential motion of
the ions and electrons. The forces exerted by these fields on the charged
particles that make up the plasma act over long distances and impart to the
particles' behavior a coherent, collective quality that neutral gases do not
display. (Despite the existence of localized charge concentrations and electric
potentials, a plasma is electrically "quasi-neutral," because, in aggregate,
there are approximately equal numbers of positively and negatively charged
particles distributed so that their charges cancel.)

PLASMA UNIVERSE

The plasma universe It is estimated that 99% of the matter in the observable
universe is in the plasma state...hence the expression "plasma universe."
(The phrase "observable universe" is an important qualifier: roughly 90% of
the mass of the universe is thought to be contained in "dark matter," the
composition and state of which are unknown.) Stars, stellar and extragalactic
jets, and the interstellar medium are examples of astrophysical plasmas (see
figure). In our solar system, the Sun, the interplanetary medium, the
magnetospheres and/or ionospheres of the Earth and other planets, as well
as the ionospheres of comets and certain planetary moons all consist of
plasmas.

The plasmas of interest to space physicists are extremely tenuous, with

densities dramatically lower than those achieved in laboratory vacuums. The
density of the best laboratory vacuum is about 10 billion particles per cubic
centimeter. In comparison, the density of the densest magnetospheric plasma
region, the inner plasmasphere, is only 1000 particles per cubic centimeter,
while that of the plasma sheet is less than 1 particle per cubic centimeter.
The temperatures of space plasmas are very high, ranging from several
thousand degrees Celsius in the plasmasphere to several million degrees in
the ring current. While the temperatures of the "cooler" plasmas of the
ionosphere and plasmasphere are typically given in degrees Kelvin, those of
the "hotter" magnetospheric plasmas are more commonly expressed in terms
of the average kinetic energies of their constitutent particles measured in
"electron volts."

An electron volt (eV) is the energy that an electron acquires as it is

accelerated through a potential difference of one volt and is equivalent to
11,600 degrees Kelvin. Magnetospheric plasmas are often characterized as
being "cold" or "hot." Although these labels are quite subjective, they are
widely used in the space physics literature. As a rule of thumb, plasmas with
temperatures less than about 100 eV are "cold," while those with
temperatures ranging from 100 eV to 30 keV can be considered "hot."
(Particles with higher energies--such as those that populate the radiation
belt--are termed "energetic.")

Plasma in the everyday world

Get to know plasma, the most common, but probably least understood, phase
of matter in the universe!

A video will be shown.

PLASMA POWER

A higher-temperature plasma is the exhaust of a jet engine. It is a weakly

ionized plasma, but when small amounts of potassium salts or cesium metal
are added, it becomes a very good conductor, and when it is directed into a
magnet, electricity is generated. This is MHD power, the
magnetohydrodynamic inter- action between a plasma and a magnetic field.
Low-pollution MHD power is now in the developmental stage and is in
operation at a few places in the world already. We can expect to see more
plasma power with MHD.

Like all technology, fusion can be applied to humanitys benefit as well as for
its destruction. We have come a long way with our mastery of the first three
phases of matter. Our mastery of the fourth phase may bring us ever so
much farther.

MHD POWER

MHD Generation or Magneto Hydro Dynamic Power Generation

The MHD generation or, also known as magneto hydrodynamic power

generation is a direct energy conversion system which converts the heat
energy directly into electrical energy, without any intermediate mechanical
energy conversion, as opposed to the case in all other power generating
plants. Therefore, in this process, substantial fuel economy can be achieved
due to the elimination of the link process of producing mechanical energy and
then again converting it to electrical energy .

CLArification(s)

What is an ideal gas? An ideal gas is a hypothetical gas dreamed by

chemists and students because it would be much easier if things like
intermolecular forces do not exist to complicate the simple Ideal Gas Law.
Ideal gases are essentially point masses moving in constant, random,
straight-line motion.

Gases, unlike solids and liquids have indefinite shape and indefinite volume. As a
result, they are subject to pressure changes, volume changes and temperature
changes. Real gas behavior is actually complex. For now, let's look at ideal Gases,
since their behavior is simpler. By understanding ideal gas behavior, real gas
behavior becomes more tangible.
How do we describe an ideal gas? An ideal gas has the following properties:
1. An ideal gas is considered to be a "point mass". A point mass is a particle so
small, its mass is very nearly zero. This means an ideal gas particle has virtually no
volume.
2. Collisions between ideal Gases are "elastic". This means that no attractive or
repulsive forces are involved during collisions. Also, the kinetic energy of the gas
molecules remains constant since these interparticle forces are lacking.

CLARIFICATION(S)

It takes a very special environment to keep plasmas going. They are

different and unique from the other states of matter. Plasma is different from
a gas, because it is made up of groups of positively and negatively charged
particles.

The defining difference is that in a gas the atoms are intact, and in fact are
typically bonded into molecules, whereas in a plasma at least some of the
electrons separate entirely from their atoms. In other words, particles of a
plasma are charged, but particles of a gas are mostly uncharged.