Let’s add helium gas

‘Helium’ page from Theodore Gray’s amazing book, The Elements

Last week, we put 1.00 mole of hydrogen gas into a cylinder. The resulting pressure was 243 kPa and the temperature was maintained steady at 20°C. This week, we’ll add 1.00 mol of helium gas, He(g), to the vessel and see what happens.

Will the helium react with the hydrogen?

No. Helium is completely inert. Hydrogen and helium will co-exist without undergoing any chemical reactions.

What will the resulting pressure be?

This is a very simple calculation. With 2.00 moles of gas in the vessel, the pressure would be double what it was before. This is known as Dalton’s law of partial pressures: the total pressure in a vessel is equal to the sum of all the pressure of the individual gases in the vessel.

Let’s convert that into pounds per square inch (psi) for easy comparison with everyday objects.

That’s about the same as a hard bicycle tyre.

How fast are the molecules moving?

Remember from last week that when our vessel contained only hydrogen gas, the molecules were moving around randomly with an average speed of 1760 metres per second.

Kinetic molecular theory states that the kinetic energy of a gas is directly proportional to the temperature of that gas. The formula for kinetic energy is shown below:

At constant temperature, heavier particles move more slowly than lighter ones. Even though they have the same kinetic energy, helium atoms at 20 °C move slower than hydrogen molecules at 20 °C because they have almost exactly double the mass. How much slower does the helium move? Let’s find out.

The molecules are moving at 1245 metres per second, or 4482 km/h. This is slower than the hydrogen gas by a factor of exactly root 2.

The molecules in our vessel could orbit the Earth in just 6 hours if they were to move in a single direction at this speed. Because the motion of particles in our gas mixture is random – they jiggle about rather than move in a single direction – they stay securely in the vessel.

Conclusion after adding helium

No chemistry’s happening in the vessel – not yet. Molecules of hydrogen and helium are simply co-existing in our vessel, bouncing off each other at different speeds and not interacting in any other way.

• Hydrogen gas, H₂(g): 1.00 mol
• Helium gas, He(g): 1.00 mol

For some chemistry to happen, we’ll need to add the next element, lithium. We’ll do that next week.