Wine goes bad soon after opening because the ethanol (CH3CH2OH) dissolved in it reacts with oxygen (O2) gas to form water and aqueous acetic acid (CH3COOH), the main ingredient in vinegar. Calculate the moles of oxygen needed to produce 2.4 mol of acetic acid. Be sure your answer has a unit symbol, if necessary, and round it to 2 significant digits.
The balanced chemical equation for the reaction between ethanol and oxygen to form acetic acid is:
C2H5OH + O2 -> 2CH3COOH + H2O
From the equation, we can see that it takes 1 mol of oxygen to produce 2 mol of acetic acid. Therefore, to produce 2.4 mol of acetic acid, we would need:
2.4 mol acetic acid * (1 mol oxygen / 2 mol acetic acid) = 1.2 mol oxygen
Therefore, we would need 1.2 mol of oxygen to produce 2.4 mol of acetic acid.