Vapor Pressure Independence?

[justadream]

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Let’s say I have a liquid substance X. I pump N2 over the reaction vessel. By running N2 over the vessel, I increase the evaporation of substance X (since the N2 flushes the vapor of substance X away and more substance X evaporates to reestablish equilibrium).



My question is: Does this imply that the vapor pressure of N2 is really completely independent of the vapor pressure of substance X?



For example, lets say I had substance X and pumped N2 at 999 Atm. Would the VP of substance X really not be affected?

 

[Blueprint MCAT Tutor]

I can't recall any specific AAMC problems that address the idea of independent partial pressures in the context of one of the partial pressures being insanely high.

So I guess the short answer is: don't worry about it.

When we're analyzing MCAT topics, the question is never "what does the science say really happens?" but instead "how will the AAMC test me on this?"

And as I recall (based on my early-sunday-morning-no-coffee-yet recollections) the AAMC isn't going to ask you any tricks on this. It just expects you to know that partial pressures are independent of each other.