at a depth of 100m underwater the water pressure is equal to 10 atm of pressure. what is the partial pressure of N2 at a pressure of 10 atm?
In air at 10atm?
Dry Air is about 78 percent Nitrogen, so partial pressure at 10atm=7.8 atm
The issue always underwater vs above water, is that air below water as in a casson is wet air, fully saturated, so water vapor reduces the partial pressures of the other gases slightly. Your question is not clear on what gases are present in the mixture.
the gas is still about 80% N2
so 8 atm
It would also be 2 atm O2 instead of 0.20 atm O2 or ten times the O2 pressure. Both the high partial pressure of N2 and of O2 cause problems for divers and for deep diving for extended times mixtures with lower O2 content and Helium instead of Nitrogen are used (HELIOX). For example see: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/diving/technical/technical.html
To find the partial pressure of nitrogen (N2) at a pressure of 10 atm, we need to know the composition of the gas mixture.
Assuming that the gas mixture contains only nitrogen and that it follows Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure, we can say that the partial pressure of nitrogen (PN2) is proportional to the total pressure (Ptotal) and the mole fraction of nitrogen (XN2):
PN2 = XN2 * Ptotal
However, we need to know the mole fraction of nitrogen in order to calculate the partial pressure.
If we assume that the mole fraction of nitrogen in air is around 0.78 (which means nitrogen makes up about 78% of the air we breathe), we can proceed with the calculation.
PN2 = 0.78 * 10 atm
= 7.8 atm
So, at a pressure of 10 atm, and assuming a mole fraction of nitrogen of approximately 0.78, the partial pressure of nitrogen would be 7.8 atm.
To determine the partial pressure of nitrogen (N2) at a pressure of 10 atm, we need to know the composition of the gas mixture. The information provided implies that the pressure of the gas mixture is solely due to nitrogen gas.
At a depth of 100m underwater, the water pressure is equal to 10 atm. This means that the total pressure of the gas mixture is 10 atm. Since we assume that the entire pressure is due to nitrogen gas, the partial pressure of nitrogen (PN2) is also equal to 10 atm.
So, in this scenario, the partial pressure of nitrogen (PN2) at a pressure of 10 atm is also 10 atm.