% Carbon in CO2 and CO

[vacuta]

I'm kind of fed up with all of the wrong accusation that my teacher has been making in her math word problems that's supposed to be "practice". Yes, they do help us practice, but that's besides the point.

In quite a few, I have found completely WRONG information, which just annoys me. I couldn't confirm this anywhere else, so maybe here might help.

Does anyone know what % of carbon is in carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide? In a certain problem my teacher gave me, it says "Carbon monoxide is a gas that is 43% carbon. Carbon dioxide is only 27% carbon."

Thanks!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Hmm. CO, per mole of gas, has:

 

12g of C

16g of O

 

In total, that's 28g for each mole of CO. 12/28 = about 43%.

 

In CO₂, there's two oxygens, so it's 44g total. 12/44 = about 27%.

 

So if you work it out by mass, the numbers are right. If you do it by numbers of atoms, they're wrong.

[vacuta]

Hmm. CO, per mole of gas, has:

 

12g of C

16g of O

 

In total, that's 28g for each mole of CO. 12/28 = about 43%.

 

In CO₂, there's two oxygens, so it's 44g total. 12/44 = about 27%.

 

So if you work it out by mass, the numbers are right. If you do it by numbers of atoms, they're wrong.

 

Oh, I didn't realize how easy it would've been to figure that out. Well, thank you!

[insane_alien]

maybe you should ask for clarification instead of jumping to conclusions next time.