[Physics] Why during free-expansion, temperature changes for real-gas while the same doesn’t happen so for ideal gas

thermodynamics

While reading Free-expansion, I got this:

Real gases experience a temperature change during free expansion. For an ideal gas, the temperature doesn't change, […]

I know that temperature doesn't change for free-expansion of ideal gas since internal energy is a function of temperature and since, $\Delta U= 0\;,$ temperature remains same.

But the later statement? Why does the temperature change for real gas? Does the internal energy of real gas not depend on temperature? Can anyone please explain this fact?

Best Answer

The reason that the temperature changes in an expansion/compression of a real gas at constant internal energy can be quite intuitively understood.

Suppose that the interactions between the gas molecules are repulsive. If we compress the gas while fixing its energy, the average intermolecular distance decreases, leading to the increase in the potential energy. Accordingly, the kinetic energy, as well as the temperature, has to decrease (energy conservation).

Similar lines of reasoning apply for other cases, i.e., expansion or compression of a gas with repulsive or attractive interactions.