Critical phenomena in gases - I

The exact measurements of the isotherms of gases have proved extremely valuable in the determination of interatomic forces. For this purpose it has been found necessary to express the pv values of a gas as a finite power series in the density or in the pressure, and the coefficients so obtained have been compared with theoretical expressions in terms of interatomic fields. Many accounts of the method have been given and it is not necessary to give further details here (cf. Lennard-Jones 1931). While these methods are valid for gases at low densities where binary encounters are predominant, they fail for gases at high densities such as obtain in the neighbourhood of the critical point. Michels and his collaborators (Michels and others 1937) have recently studied the isotherms of gases at pressures as high as 3000 atm., and they find that the usual method of representing isotherms as simple functions of density or pressure ceases to be useful. The equation of state of van der Waals was astonishingly successful in accounting for the critical phenomena of gases and the form of the isotherms for temperatures below the critical temperature. Other empirical equations of state, for example that of Dieterici, were even more successful in reproducing the observed relations between the critical pressure, volume and temperature, and their very success has often obscured the fact that they were not logical theories of critical phenomena in gases, based as they were on arguments which were valid only for gases of low concentration. Thus the van der Waals equation, valuable as it has been and useful as it still is, implies that the internal energy of a vapour and its liquid phase is proportional only to the first power of the density, and this cannot be true for gases or vapours at densities comparable with those of liquids. The problem still remains of explaining why gases exhibit critical properties and of correlating the observed values of the critical temperature with the forces which atoms or molecules exert on each other.