Standard temperature and pressure

Standard temperature and pressure (STP) or standard conditions for temperature and pressure are various standard sets of conditions for experimental measurements used to allow comparisons to be made between different sets of data. The most used standards are those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), although these are not universally accepted. Other organizations have established a variety of other definitions.

In industry and commerce, the standard conditions for temperature and pressure are often necessary for expressing the volumes of gases and liquids and related quantities such as the rate of volumetric flow (the volumes of gases vary significantly with temperature and pressure): standard cubic meters per second (Sm³/s), and normal cubic meters per second (Nm³/s).

Many technical publications (books, journals, advertisements for equipment and machinery) simply state "standard conditions" without specifying them; often substituting the term with older "normal conditions", or "NC". In special cases this can lead to confusion and errors. Good practice always incorporates the reference conditions of temperature and pressure. If not stated, some room environment conditions are supposed, close to 1 atm pressure, 273.15 K (0 °C), and 0% humidity.

In chemistry, IUPAC changed its definition of standard temperature and pressure in 1982:

NIST uses a temperature of 20 °C (293.15 K, 68 °F) and an absolute pressure of 1 atm (14.696 psi, 101.325 kPa). This standard is also called normal temperature and pressure (abbreviated as NTP). However, a common temperature and pressure in use by NIST for thermodynamic experiments is 298.15 K (25 °C, 77 °F) and 1 bar (14.5038 psi, 100 kPa). NIST also uses 15 °C (288.15 K, 59 °F) for the temperature compensation of refined petroleum products, despite noting that these two values are not exactly consistent with each other.

The ISO 13443 standard reference conditions for natural gas and similar fluids are 288.15 K (15.00 °C; 59.00 °F) and 101.325 kPa; by contrast, the American Petroleum Institute adopts 60 °F (15.56 °C; 288.71 K).

Before 1918, many professionals and scientists using the metric system of units defined the standard reference conditions of temperature and pressure for expressing gas volumes as being 15 °C (288.15 K; 59.00 °F) and 101.325 kPa (1.00 atm; 760 Torr). During those same years, the most commonly used standard reference conditions for people using the imperial or U.S. customary systems was 60 °F (15.56 °C; 288.71 K) and 14.696 psi (1 atm) because it was almost universally used by the oil and gas industries worldwide. The above definitions are no longer the most commonly used in either system of units.

Many different definitions of standard reference conditions are currently being used by organizations all over the world. The table below lists a few of them, but there are more. Some of these organizations used other standards in the past. For example, IUPAC has, since 1982, defined standard reference conditions as being 0 °C and 100 kPa (1 bar), in contrast to its old standard of 0 °C and 101.325 kPa (1 atm). The new value is the mean atmospheric pressure at an altitude of about 112 metres, which is closer to the worldwide median altitude of human habitation (194 m).