Combustion of fossil fuels continues to increase until it adds 3.809*10^13 kg’s of carbon to the atmosphere each year as CO2. How much CO2 would be added to the atmosphere? How much glucose could plants produce if they took up this entire mass of carbon?
To find out how much CO2 would be added to the atmosphere, we need to first calculate the molar mass of carbon and then convert the mass of carbon to moles and, finally, to moles of CO2.
Molar mass of carbon (C) = 12.01 g/mol
Mass of carbon added to the atmosphere = 3.809*10^13 kg = 3.809*10^16 g
Number of moles of carbon = Mass / Molar mass = (3.809*10^16) / 12.01 = 3.175*10^15 moles
Each mole of carbon combines with 1 mole of O2 to form 1 mole of CO2.
So, the number of moles of CO2 produced = 3.175*10^15 moles
Now, to find out how much glucose plants could produce if they took up this carbon, we need to consider the chemical equation for photosynthesis:
6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6O2
From the equation, we can see that for every 6 moles of CO2 taken up, 1 mole of glucose (C6H12O6) is produced.
So, the number of moles of glucose produced = (3.175*10^15) / 6 = 5.292*10^14 moles
Now, we can calculate the mass of glucose produced:
Molar mass of glucose (C6H12O6) = (6*12.01) + (12*1.01) + (6*16.00) = 180.16 g/mol
Mass of glucose produced = Number of moles * Molar mass = (5.292*10^14) * 180.16 = 9.530*10^16 g
Therefore, if plants took up the entire mass of carbon added to the atmosphere each year, they could produce 9.530*10^16 grams or 9.530*10^13 kg of glucose.