A particular coal contains 2.55% sulfur by mass. When the coal is burned, it produces SO2 emissions which combine with rainwater to produce sulfuric acid.

Question

Determine how much sulfuric acid (in metric tons) is produced by the combustion of 1.1 metric ton of this coal. (A metric ton is 1000kg .)

A: ___ metric ton H2SO4

How do you set this up?


For Further Reading

chem - bobpursley, Monday, October 1, 2007 at 12:47pm
Determine the percent of S in sulfuric acid.

Then:

1.1ton/.0255 * 100/percentSinacid =

chem - DD, Monday, October 1, 2007 at 1:33pm
I tried this & the % of S in sulfuric acid = 32.7%.
However, when I worked 1.1ton/0.0255*11/0.327 I got:13191.82107. The question says to give to 2sig figs. I entered 1.3*10^4, but said that it was incorrect.

Any other suggestions...or did I just enter the numbers incorrectly?

chem - DD, Monday, October 1, 2007 at 1:36pm
tried this & the % of S in sulfuric acid = 32.7%.
However, when I worked 1.1ton/0.0255*100/0.327 I got:13191.82107. The question says to give to 2sig figs. I entered 1.3*10^4, but said that it was incorrect.

Any other suggestions...or did I just enter the numbers incorrectly?

Answer 1

Try 1.1 metric tons x 0.0255 x (1 mol H2SO4/1 mol S) =
1.1 x 0.0255 x (98.079/32.066) = 0.08580 which rounds to 0.086 to two sig figures. Let me know how this works.

Answer 2

I tried 8.6*10^-2 & well...it didn't work & now I have exceeded all attempts. Thank you for your help, however. I am not just sure what the question was really looking for. I will attempt to ask my prof if I get the chance. Perhaps it has something to do with the kg's? Or...perhaps it just didn't like the form that I wrote it in. I just checked what my answers were & it listed it as me having entered what I did & then under "evaluated" it just wrote 8.60...therefore incorrect. I should have perhaps just put as you stated.

Answer 3

Thanks for letting me know. I'm sure 0.086 to two s.f. is correct.

Answer 4

Mastering Cheistry? Im stumped on the same question: A particular coal contains 2.55% sulfur by mass. When the coal is burned, it produces SO2 emissions which combine with rainwater to produce sulfuric acid. Use the formula of sulfuric acid to calculate the mass percent of S in sulfuric acid. __ % S??

I would appreciate some help! Thanks!

Answer 5

I tried your answer exactly as you put it, and it was still wrong. The correct answer that m.c. gave me is 7.8*10^-2

Answer 6

Okay, I was able to get the correct answer on Mastering Chemistry.

First, you'll want to multiply the 1.2 metric tons of coal by the percent of sulfur (present in the coal) out of 100.

So: 1.2 metric tons of coal x (2.55/100) = 0.0306 metric tons of sulfur present in 1.2 metric tons of coal

Then, what you'll do with this number is multiply it by the molar mass ratio of sulfur present in sulfuric acid. But WAIT... you have to convert the units from grams to metric tons first.

So, take 32.066g (amount of sulfur present in 1 mole of sulfuric acid) and convert:
32.066g x (1kg/1000g) x (1 metric ton/1000kg) = 3.2066x10^-5 metric tons

Do the same for 98.086g (molar mass of sulfuric acid):
98.086g x (1kg/1000g) x (1 metric ton/1000kg) = 9.8086 x10^-5 metric tons

Now you can multiply the 0.0306 metric tons sulfur by the ratio...
0.0306 metric tons sulfur x (9.8086x10^-5 metric tons sulfuric acid / 3.2066x10^-5 metric tons sulfur) = 0.093601... metric tons sulfuric acid

The question asks for 2 significant figures so the final answer would be 0.094 or 9.4x10^-2 metric tons sulfuric acid

Hope this helped! :)