CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

When we are calculating work with either constant pressure or not, do we always have to use units of atm? Can we use pascals or bar or should we convert?

I would just use atm for everything, especially because R constant units are (L*atm)/(K mol).

It is important to know that there’s a slight difference between bars and atm (1.013 bar = 1 atm) but from the homework problems it seems rare that they give something in terms of bars and you need to convert to atm. Atm is also helpful because of the useful conversion 101.325 J/L*atm.

I usually always try to use atm since the most common gas constant is in terms of atm. Additionally, you can use 101.325 J = 1 L x atm to convert between energy and pressure/volume.

Try your best to use atm, since the gas constant (R) is in terms of atm.

The formula sheet has unit conversion equations to get to J.

Does anyone have a good summary of all the equations we should know? some of them aren't on the equation sheet...

Best bet is to use atm for pressure but I'm sure the equation sheet will give us conversions between different pressure values.