Question

Do real gases have volume ?

Answer 1

Here, you are asked to find out whether real gases have volume or not. First of all, you need to understand the basic definition of real gases and understand the difference between a real gas and an ideal gas. In order to answer this question, what you can do is try relating the volumes of real gas and ideal gas using the appropriate equations or inequalities.

Complete answer:
First, let us look at what an ideal gas is. So, an ideal gas is a hypothetical gas which in real life is not possible to obtain. It is a theoretical gas which has a number of point particles moving randomly. According to the assumptions of the kinetic theory, there is no interaction between the particles of the gas with each other. The particles of an ideal gas are considered to be point particles and therefore the volume of the particles is zero and the volume of the gas would be the volume of the container in which it is contained. So, we have ${V_{ideal}} = {V_{empty}}$, where ${V_{empty}}$ is the volume of the empty space.

Now, let us look for real gas. Real gases are through which are non-ideal, meaning that ideal gas is an approximation of real gas and as a result, the measurable quantities that will be calculated using the ideal gas equation will differ from that of the real gas. So, the particles of the real gas will actually have some volume of their own. If you consider the volume of a real gas now, it will be equal to the volume occupied by the particles of the real gas plus the empty volume. So, we have, ${V_{real}} = {V_{particles}} + {V_{empty}}$ and as we have concluded that ${V_{ideal}} = {V_{empty}}$, we get, ${V_{real}} = {V_{particles}} + {V_{ideal}} \to {V_{real}} > {V_{ideal}}$.

So, yes, real gases do have volume.

Note: We have discussed in detail about the volumes of the real gas as well as the ideal gas. Remember that the real gases do have volume and in fact their volume is greater than the volume of the ideal gas. Keep in mind the definition of real gas and ideal gas and also remember that ideal gas is an approximation of a real gas.