Monatomic gas


In physics and chemistry, "monatomic" is a combination of the words "mono" and "atomic", and means "single atom". It is usually applied to gases: a monatomic gas is one in which atoms are not bound to each other. Examples at standard conditions include the noble gases argon, krypton, and xenon, though all chemical elements will be monatomic in the gas phase at sufficiently high temperatures. The thermodynamic behavior of a monatomic gas is extremely simple when compared to polyatomic gases because it is free of any rotational or vibrational energy.

Noble gases

The only chemical elements that are stable single atom molecules at standard temperature and pressure are the noble gases. These are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon. Noble gases have a full outer valence shell making them rather non-reactive species. While these elements have been described historically as completely inert, chemical compounds have been synthesized with all but neon and helium.
When grouped together with the homonuclear diatomic gases such as nitrogen, the noble gases are called "elemental gases" or "molecular gases" to distinguish them from molecules that are also chemical compounds.

Thermodynamic properties

The only possible motion of an atom in a monatomic gas is translation. Thus by the equipartition theorem, the kinetic energy of a single atom of a monatomic gas at thermodynamic temperature T is given by, where kb is Boltzmann's constant. One mole of atoms contains an Avogadro number of atoms, so that the energy of one mole of atoms of a monoatomic gas is, where R is the gas constant.
In an adiabatic process, monatomic gases have an idealised γ-factor of 5/3, as opposed to 7/5 for ideal diatomic gases where rotation also contributes. Also, for ideal monatomic gases: