how to balance combustion of 5% by volume in air.
1. 0.05 CH4 + ( )(0.21 O2 + 0.79 N2)
2. ( )CH4 + O2 + 0.376 N2
For the life of me, I don't understand your question.
Nor do I. I looked at it several times but it doesn't make sense to me.
To balance the combustion of methane (CH4) in air, you need to calculate the coefficients of the reactants and products so that the number of each type of atom is balanced on both sides of the chemical equation.
Let's start with the first equation: 0.05 CH4 + ( )(0.21 O2 + 0.79 N2).
Since we are given that methane is 5% by volume, we can assume that the total volume of the mixture is 100%. Therefore, the remaining 95% must be air, which consists mainly of nitrogen (79%) and oxygen (21%).
Now, let's balance the equation:
For the carbon (C) atoms:
On the left side, we have 0.05 CH4, which means we have 0.05 carbon atoms.
On the right side, we have ( )O2, which gives us ( ) carbon atoms.
Since we have only one carbon atom in methane, the coefficient of O2 needs to be 0.05.
For the hydrogen (H) atoms:
On the left side, we have 0.05 CH4, which means we have (0.05*4) 0.20 hydrogen atoms.
On the right side, there are no hydrogen atoms indicated. So, we need to balance it by putting a coefficient of 0.20 in front of H2O (an expected product).
For the nitrogen (N) atoms:
On the left side, we have ( )(0.79 N2), which is ( ) nitrogen atoms.
On the right side, we have 0.20 H2O, which means we have 0.00 nitrogen atoms.
To balance the nitrogen atoms, we need to put a coefficient of 0.20 in front of N2.
Now we have the balanced equation:
0.05 CH4 + (0.05 O2 + 0.20 H2O + 0.20 N2)
Let's move on to the second equation: ( )CH4 + O2 + 0.376 N2.
Again, we start by balancing the carbon (C) atoms:
On the left side, there are ( ) CH4, which is ( ) carbon atoms.
On the right side, we have O2, which contains no carbon atoms. Therefore, we need to place a coefficient of ( ) in front of CH4 to balance the carbon atoms.
For the hydrogen (H) atoms:
On the left side, there are no hydrogen atoms indicated.
On the right side, we have O2, which doesn't contain any hydrogen atoms either. Thus, the hydrogen atoms are already balanced.
For the nitrogen (N) atoms:
On the left side, there is no nitrogen indicated.
On the right side, we have 0.376 N2, which is 0.376 nitrogen atoms.
To balance the nitrogen atoms, we need to put a coefficient of 0.376 in front of CH4.
Now we have the balanced equation:
0.376 CH4 + O2 + 0.376 N2
Remember that these equations represent the same chemical reaction, but they are balanced differently due to the way the information is presented.