You have a sealed glass jar full of air. If you put it in the freezer, what happens to the gas pressure in the jar??
You have a sealed glass jar full of air. If you put it in the freezer, what happens to the gas pressure in the jar?
The pressure inside decreases
When you put the sealed glass jar full of air in the freezer, the gas inside the jar will experience a decrease in pressure. This happens because the temperature inside the freezer is generally lower than the room temperature where the air in the jar was originally at.
To understand why the gas pressure decreases, we need to refer to the gas laws, specifically Charles's Law and the Ideal Gas Law.
Charles's Law states that at a constant pressure, the volume of a given amount of gas is directly proportional to its temperature. In simpler terms, as the temperature decreases, the volume of gas decreases as well.
The Ideal Gas Law combines several gas laws, including Charles's Law, and states that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume at a constant temperature. In other words, if you decrease the volume of a gas while keeping the temperature constant, its pressure will increase. Likewise, if you increase the volume of a gas, its pressure will decrease.
In the scenario you described, the sealed glass jar prevents the gas from escaping, so its volume remains constant. When you place the jar in the freezer, the temperature of the air inside the jar decreases. According to Charles's Law, the volume of the gas will decrease as well. Since the volume remains constant, the pressure inside the jar will decrease following the inverse relationship described by the Ideal Gas Law.
Therefore, when you put the glass jar full of air in the freezer, the gas pressure inside the jar will decrease.