Question

Country A releases 60 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Calculate the mass of carbon in this quantity of CO2

Answer 1

Answer on Question #62893 - Chemistry - Organic Chemistry

Country A releases 60 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Calculate the mass of carbon in this quantity of CO2.

Solution

Each carbon (IV) oxide molecule contains one Carbon atom. Therefore, the amount of Carbon equals the amount of $\mathrm{CO}_{2}$ :

$$\boldsymbol {v} (\boldsymbol {C}) = \boldsymbol {v} \left(\boldsymbol {C O} _ {2}\right)$$

The amount of CO2 can be estimated as:

$$\boldsymbol {v} \left(\boldsymbol {C O} _ {2}\right) = \frac {\boldsymbol {m} \left(\boldsymbol {C O} _ {2}\right)}{\boldsymbol {M} \left(\boldsymbol {C O} _ {2}\right)}$$

Therefore, the mass of carbon is:

$$m (C) = v (C) \times M (C) = \frac {m (C O _ {2})}{M (C O _ {2})} \times M (C) = \frac {6 \times 1 0 ^ {1 0} t o n s}{4 4 . 0 1 g / m o l} \times 1 2. 0 1 \frac {g}{m o l} \approx 1. 6 4 \times 1 0 ^ {1 0} t o n s$$

Answer: 16.4 billion metric tons

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