Academic Integrity: tutoring, explanations, and feedback — we don’t complete graded work or submit on a student’s behalf.

O KINETICS AND EQUILIBRIUM Solving problems that mix equilibrium ideas with gas

ID: 563932 • Letter: O

Question

O KINETICS AND EQUILIBRIUM Solving problems that mix equilibrium ideas with gas laws 10 Ethylene (CH2CH2) is the starting point for a wide array of industrial chemical syntheses. For example, worldwide about 8.0 × 10 kg of polyethylene are made from ethylene each year, for use in everything from household plumbing to artificial joints. Natural sources of ethylene are entirely inadequate to meet world demand, so ethane (CHCH3) from natural gas is "cracked" in refineries at high temperature in a kinetically complex reaction that produces ethylene gas and hydrogen gas. artifial (CH,CH,) from natural g Suppose an engineer studying ethane cracking fills a 75.0 L reaction tank with 48.0 atm of ethane gas and raises the temperature to 450. °C. He believes Kn=0.10 at this temperature. Calculate the percent by mass of ethylene the engineer expects to find in the equilibrium gas mixture. Round your answer to 2 significant digits. Note for advanced students: the engineer may be mistaken about the correct value of Kp, and the mass percent of ethylene you calculate may not be what he actually observes.

Explanation / Answer

The reaction for cracking ethane is

...................C2H6 ===== C2H4 + H2, draw the ICE chart

I...................48....................0.........0

C.................-x....................+x.........+x

E...............48-x..................x.............x

Kp is x*x/(48-x) = 0.1

if you solve this equation you will get a value of x equal to 2.142 atm

Pressure for Ethane is 48 - 2.142 = 45.858

Pressure for Ethylene is 2.142 atm

Pressure for Hydrogen is 2.142 atm

Total pressure is 50.142 atm (add all the partial pressures from before)

change these values from pressure to moles and then to mass using ideal gas equation

moles for ethane

moles = PV / RT = 45.858*75/(0.082*(450+273.15)= 58.008 moles

mass = moles * molar mass , molar mass for ethane is 30

mass = 58.008 * 30 = 17440.2 grams

repeat this for the hydrogen

moles of hydrogen =PV / RT = 2.142*75/(0.082*(450+273.15)= 2.709 moles

this is the same amount of ethylene

mass of hydrogen is = 5.41 grams

mass of ethylene is 76 grams

add all the masses

total mass = 1825.437 grams

percent mass of ethylene is (mass of ethylene divided by the total mass of the mixture)

76 / 1825.437 = 0.0416 *100 = 4.16 % using 2 significant figures is 4.2%

*if this answer is helpful dont forget to rate it =)