Skip to main content Skip to main content

Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions

Decompression Sickness and Henry’s Law (animation)

Henry’s Law states that the solubility of a gas in a liquid is proportional to the partial pressure of the gas over the liquid. This is important to SCUBA divers, because more nitrogen dissolves in their blood when they breathe compressed air at depth. Then when they ascend to the surface and the pressure is released, the nitrogen gas bubbles out of solution, causing the painful and dangerous symptoms of decompression sickness.

Series Directory

Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions

Credits

Produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 2014.
  • Closed Captioning

Units