Abstract
Ideal gas law correlates pressure, volume, and temperature of an ideal gas with one another. At a constant volume, for example, the pressure of a given amount of gas is directly proportional to its temperature: a “moka” coffee pot relies on this particular case, which is known as first law of Gay-Lussac or Charles’s law. If, conversely, temperature remains constant, volume and pressure of a sample of any gas are inversely proportional (Boyle’s law). Boyle’s law allows to calculate the duration of an oxygen cylinder. Moreover, it has a key role in both the pathophysiology of decompression illness and its recompression therapy with hyperbaric oxygen. Finally, Boyle’s law accounts for the need to fill the endotracheal tube cuff with saline instead of air in an intubated patient requiring hyperbaric therapy.
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Pisano, A. (2017). Perfect Coffee and Oxygen Cylinders: The Ideal Gas Law. In: Physics for Anesthesiologists. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57330-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57330-4_1
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