CHAPTER 2: Low-pressure Solubility of Gases in Liquids

Quantitative investigation of the solubility of gases in liquids has a long and well-established tradition in physical chemistry and has brought about a wealth of new and precise experimental results that in turn have furthered the development of solution theories. In addition to its profound theoretical interest, the study of gas solubilities has found many important practical applications in surprisingly diverse areas of the pure and applied sciences, for instance, in chemical process design (gas sweetening), geochemistry, environmental science (pollution control), biomedical technology and biophysics (hydrophobic effects). In the latter context, pride of place is given to high-precision experimental methods characterised by imprecisions of the determined Henry fugacities (also known as Henry's law constants) h_2,1(T, P_σ,1) of about ±0.05%, thereby allowing reliable van 't Hoff-type data treatment of aqueous systems to obtain partial molar enthalpy changes on solution, ΔH$2∞$(T, P_σ,1), and partial molar heat capacity changes on solution, ΔC$P2∞$(T, P_σ,1), that are in accord with directly measured calorimetric results.