Answer to Question #244058 in General Chemistry for shae

Question

White vinegar is a solution of acetic acid in water. There are two strengths of white vinegar—a 5% solution and a 10% solution. How many millilitres of each solution must be mixed to make 125 mL of a 8% vinegar solution? 

Answer 1

When the problem informs you that it is a 5% solution, it means that if we divide the container into 100 parts, 5 are acetic acid, and the rest (95!) is water.

A 10% solution means the same, just 10 parts out of 100 instead of 5.

We need to divide the 125 ml into 100 parts, so we can figure out how much acetic acid is in each mixture.

125 ml/50 = 2.5 ml, but that is not enough.

If we divide 125 ml by 100, w get 1.25ml.

For the 5 percent mixture, that means 5 of these 1/2 ml parts are acetic acid. 1.25*5= 7.5

7.5/125 ml are actic acid.

Since 10% is double 5%, we can double our answer to see how many ml of acetic acid are in the 125 solution.

7.5*2 is 15