In this simulation, an ideal gas is heated or cooled in two containers, one at constant pressure and one at constant volume. Vary the amount of heat added or removed with the slider, and switch between heating and cooling the gas by selecting one of the buttons. Click the play button to initiate heat transfer and use the reset button to revert back to the systems' original states. Heat transfer can be stopped with the pause button and resumed with the play button.

The first law and ideal gas law are used to calculate the final temperature \(T\) and the changes in internal energy (\(\Delta U\)) and enthalpy (\(\Delta H\)) for each system. The work \(W\) is calculated for the constant-pressure process, and the final pressure \(P\) is calculated for the constant-volume process.

1. Temperature Changes in an Ideal Gas [Video]. (Sep 1, 2016) www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oMXAioe2p8

This simulation was created in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, at University of Colorado Boulder for LearnChemE.com by Rachael Baumann under the direction of Professor John L. Falconer and was converted to HTML5 by Patrick Doyle, with additional contributions by Neil Hendren. Address any questions or comments to learncheme@gmail.com. All of our simulations are open source, and are available on our LearnChemE Github repository.

If this simulation is too big for your screen, zoom out using  +  on Mac or  +  on Windows. To zoom in, use  +  on Mac or  +  on Windows.