In a car engine, gasoline (represented by C8H18) does not burn completely, and some CO forms along with CO2 and H20. If 5.0% of the gasoline forms CO:

 

A) What is the ratio of CO2 to CO molecules in the exhaust?

B) What is the mass ratio of CO2 to CO?

C) What percentage of the gasoline must form CO for the mass ratio of CO2 to CO to be exactly 1/1?

 

 

 

I literally have no clue what to do with this problem. Can someone point me in the right direction? All I have is the unbalanced equation:

 

C8H18+ O2 --> CO2+H20+CO

What if you would balance the equation for 20 molecules gasoline, how many molecules CO would that give you, considering the fact that 1 molecule of gasoline accounts for 8 C?

I'm having trouble balancing that. I guess thats what I have to do since it can be balanced an infinite amount of ways, is assume one number and then go from there. But I'm having trouble even after assuming 20 molecules of gas.

split it into two equations.

 

one where the octane forms only CO2 and the other where the octane only forms CO

 

multiply the constituents of the former by 0.95 and the latter by 0.05 then bung the two equations together.

Alright and one more question while I work on that one.

 

How would I determine if an unknown acid I was given is weak or strong? I have NaOH and NaCl to work with.

 

Some sort of titration?