Henry's law

Henry's law, formulated by William Henry in 1803 (Refs. 1 and 2), states that the amount of a given gas dissolved in a liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid. Mathematically this can be written as

$p=kc\,$

where k, the constant of proportionality, is termed Henry's constant. This constant is, of course, dependent on the dimensions employed for the pressure and the concentration. In chemistry, atmospheres (atm) and molarity are typical. A more elegant definition is to form a dimensionless expression by making use of the ideal gas equation of state (if applicable).

References

1. William Henry "Experiments on the Quantity of Gases Absorbed by Water, at Different Temperatures, and under Different Pressures", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 93 pp. 29-42 (1803)
2. William Henry "Appendix: Experiments on the Quantity of Gases Absorbed by Water, at Different Temperatures, and under Different Pressures", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 93 pp. 274-276 (1803)

External links

• Henry's law entry on Wikipedia