Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-b-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-2/section-c/c11/isotherms-and-excluded-volume/solution

For the given one-mole model,
At fixed positive temperature its isotherm is an ideal-gas hyperbola shifted right by : pressure diverges as and tends to zero as . Higher temperatures give higher pressure at any fixed allowed volume.
Figure 1. . Original dimensionless isotherms with a common vertical asymptote at V=b. They are monotonically decreasing and have no coexistence plateau or critical inflection. Details.
For positive , the volume is the effective volume available to molecular motion. Thus describes excluded-volume repulsion or an effective incompressible molecular core. It is a molar volume in this one-mole equation, not necessarily the literal sum of molecular geometric volume. Setting recovers the ideal gas law. No attractive-energy term is included.

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