Coal gasification is a process that converts coal into methane gas. If this reaction has a percent yield of 85.0%, how much methane can be obtained from 1250 g of carbon?

1 Answer
Nov 28, 2016

#"709 g CH"_4#

Explanation:

Start by writing the balanced chemical equation that describes this reaction

#color(blue)(2)"C"_ ((s)) + 2"H"_ 2"O"_ ((g)) -> "CO"_ (2(g)) + "CH"_ (4(g))#

Notice that the reaction produces #1# mole of methane for every #color(blue)(2)# moles of carbon that take part in the reaction.

This represents the reaction's theoretical yield, i.e. what you get if the reaction has a #100%# yield.

You can convert this mole ratio to a gram ratio by using the molar masses of carbon and methane

#2 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("moles C"))) * "12.011 g"/(1color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mole C")))) = "24.022 g"#

#1 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mole CH"_4))) * "16.04 g"/(1color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mole CH"_4)))) = "16.04 g"#

You can thus say that the theoretical yield of the reaction will have it produce #"16.04 g"# of methane for every #"24.022 g"# of carbon that react.

This means that #"1250 g"# of carbon will theoretically produce

#1250 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g C"))) * "16.04 g CH"_4/(24.022color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g C")))) = "834.65 g CH"_4#

Now, the reaction is said to have an #85.0%# yield, which basically means that for every #"100 g"# of methane that could be produced, you only get #"85.0 g"#.

As a result, the actual yield of the reaction will be

#834.65 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g CH"_4))) * "85.0 g produced"/(100color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g CH"_4)))) = color(darkgreen)(ul(color(black)("709 g CH"_4)))#

The answer is rounded to three sig figs.