How many mol of NaHCO3 are needed to completely neutralize 1 mol of H2SO4?

 

answer is 2 mol

 

but why?

 

 

 

 

How many mol of Na2CO3 are needed to completely neutralize 1 mol of H2SO4?

 

answer is 1 mol Na2CO3 (accepts 2 H+)

 

These are notes I wrote in class but i'm not understanding what the question is or why this happens.

you need to look at the equation for the reaction:

 

[ce]2NaHCO3 + H2SO4 -> 2H2O + 2CO2 + Na2SO4[/ce]

 

To calculate how much [ce]NaHCO3[/ce] is required, simply take the number of moles of [ce]H2SO4[/ce] (1) and multiply by "wanted over given"... what I mean by that is the stoichiometric conversion factor. You can construct the conversion factor from the stoichiometric coefficients in the equation. In this case the stoichiometric coefficient for [ce]NaHCO3[/ce] is 2, and the stoichiometric coefficient for [ce]H2SO4[/ce] is 1. In other words the math requires is like this:

 

1 mole [ce]H2SO4[/ce] x [math]\frac{2 moles NaHCO3}{1 mole H2SO4}[/math] = 2 moles [ce]NaHCO3[/ce]

thanks herman.