Headspace Loss Calculator

When a sample bottle is sealed with even a few millilitres of trapped air, dissolved gases redistribute between the oil and the headspace until they reach thermodynamic equilibrium. The fraction that ends up in oil is governed by the Ostwald solubility coefficient and the volumes of the two phases — and the loss is selective, not uniform.

This tool implements the partition equation directly. Sample Volume is the total bottle capacity; the headspace $V_G$ is a sub-volume of it, and $V_L=\text{Sample}-V_G$ is the oil that remains. Adjust the controls below to see how much of each gas the lab actually sees at equilibrium, and where the diagnostic damage starts to show.