States Of Matter Flashcards
What are the features of solids?
- They are very hard to compress/squeeze. This is because their particles are tightly packed in a regular pattern, with almost no spaces between the particles.
- Solids have a fixed shape, and can’t move from place to place as their particles can vibrate, but are unable to move from place to place.
What are the features of liquids?
- Liquids are very hard to compress, and their particles are close together, with not too much space between them (less dense than solids though).
- Unlike solids, liquids can take the shape of their container, and they flow from place to place as the particles of a liquid can move.
What are the features of gases?
- Gases are extremely easy to compress as the particles of gases are widely spread.
- Gases spread out and fill the spaces of containers as their particles move quickly and randomly.
Solid -> Liquid
Melting: takes place at the melting point.
Liquid particles have more kinetic energy than solids, so you have to put energy in to break the forces of attration in a solid and convert a solid to a liquid.
How do forces of attration affect melting points?
The stronger the forces of attration, the higher the melting/boiling point, as you’d need more kinetic energy to break down these bonds.
Liquid -> solid
Freezing: takes place at the same temperature as the melting point.
Liquid -> Gas
Boiling: takes place at the boiling point.
Gas particles have more kinetic energy than liquids, so you have to put energy in to break the forces of attration in a liquid and convert a liquid to a gas.
Gas -> Liquid
Condensing: takes place at the same temperature as the boiling point.
What are the limitation of the simple particle model of solids, liquids and gases?
- The simple particle model assumes that all particles are solid spheres, which is not true.
- It also assumes that there are no forces between the particles.
