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Burning Charcoal
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mattjohnson
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Joined: 22/06/2007 - 18:14
Posts: 156
Burning Charcoal
mattjohnson
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Joined: 22/06/2007 - 18:14
Posts: 156
Burning Charcoal

1000g of charcoal is burned in a plentiful supply of air. assuming charcoal is pure carbon, calculate the mass of carbon dioxide formed.
i know that the formula for this reaction is C + O2 --> CO2
but i dont understand how i am supposed to calculate the mass of CO2

if anyone could help, would be great.

chemistrysubjec...
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Joined: 10/06/2007 - 22:31
Posts: 347

Let's assume that all the charcoal forms carbon dioxide and none of it forms carbon monoxide.

As you rightly said, C + O2 -> CO2

Every 12g of carbon (one mole) gives 44g of carbon dioxide (one mole).

So 1000g of C (which contains 1000/12 moles of C) will give....

(1000/12) x 44 g of CO2

3666.7 g

This might seem a bit surprising that the mass of the carbon dioxide you produce is greater than the mass of the carbon you burn. Of course this is because the oxygen atoms are not included in the mass of the carbon before burning.

Hope this helps! (Get back to me if it needs further explanation)

CSG

chemistrysubjec...
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Joined: 10/06/2007 - 22:31
Posts: 347

By the way,

C + O2 -> CO2 is a chemical equation (and not a formula). A "formula" is the chemical code for each substance. It shows the number of each kind of atom in one molecule of the substance.