Question

My motorcycle has a capacity of 4.5 gal of gasoline. If I combust all of the octane to power my motorcycle, what is the volume of CO2 generated from just my motorcycle on one tank of gas?Assume that I burn all of the gasoline into CO2 on warm day in June, where it is 85 degrees F outside with a barometric pressure of 30 mmHg

Answer 1

How much of this do you know how to do? Show what you can do and explain where you need help.

Answer 2

thanks so much for your help Dr. Bob I need to know how to set up the problem. I converted gallons to liters and temperature to kelvin and the inHg to atm. Other than that, I don't know how to set up this problem

Answer 3

I do have the added note that the answer to this problem is not the volume of the atmosphere - instead you are determining the volume of the atmsophere displaced by the CO2 generated from my motorcycle exhaust

Answer 4

1. Write and balance the equation for the combustion of octane. I will do that to get you started.
2C8H18 + 25O2 ==> 16CO2 + 18H2O

2. Look up the density and use that to convert liters gasoline to grams.
3. Convert grams octane to mols. mols = grams/molar mass.
4. Using the coefficients in the balanced equation, convert mols octane to mols CO2
5. Use PV = nRT to convert mols CO2 at the conditions listed to volume in liters. If you want the answer in liters you are done.

Answer 5

that's all I needed thank you so much, turns out I was way off

Answer 6

I'm not sure I understand the "added note". What I have given you at the end is liters CO2 generated by 4.5 gallons of gasoline at 85 F and 30 in Hg. Of course it will displace the atmosphere.