partial pressure

Partial pressure refers to the pressure exerted by a single gas in a mixture of gases. It’s like imagining each gas as contributing a part of the total pressure, proportional to its amount or concentration. For example, in the air we breathe, oxygen has a certain partial pressure based on how much oxygen is present compared to other gases. This concept helps explain how gases behave and move, such as oxygen entering blood in the lungs or carbon dioxide leaving the body, driven by differences in their partial pressures.