Liquefaction of gases is the process by which substances in their gaseous state are converted to the liquid state. When pressure on a gas is increased, its molecules closer together, and its temperature is reduced, which removes enough energy to make it change from the gaseous to the liquid state.
Two important properties of gases are important in developing methods for their liquefaction: critical temperature and critical pressure. The critical temperature of a gas is the temperature at or above which no amount of pressure, however great, will cause the gas to liquefy. The minimum pressure required to liquefy the gas at the critical temperature is called the critical pressure. For example,…
A simple example of the second method for liquefying gases is the steam engine. The principle on which a steam engine operates is that water is boiled and the steam produced is introduced into a cylinder. Inside the cylinder, the steam pushes on a piston, which drives some kind of machinery. As the steam pushes against the piston, it loses energy. That loss of energy is reflected in a lowering of …
The most important advantage of liquefying gases is that they can then be stored and transported in much more compact form than in the gaseous state. Two kinds of liquefied gases are widely used commercially for this reason, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). LPG is a mixture of gases obtained from natural gas or petroleum that has been converted to the liquid state. Th…
Pioneer work on the liquefaction of gases was carried out by the English scientist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) in the early 1820s. Faraday was able to liquefy gases with high critical temperatures such as chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen bromide, and carbon dioxide by the application of pressure alone. It was not until a half century later, however, that researchers found ways to liquefy gases…
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments