How many moles of methane do I need to react with 1 mol of oxygen in a complete combustion reaction?

1 Answer
Ernest Z.
Apr 8, 2017

You need 0.5 mol of methane.

Explanation:

First, write the balanced chemical equation for the reaction.

#"CH"_4 + "2O"_2 → "CO"_2 + "2H"_2"O"#

The equation tells you that 2 mol of oxygen react with 1 mol of methane.

∴ #"Moles of CH"_4 = 1 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mol O"_2))) × "1 mol CH"_4/(2 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mol O"_2)))) = "0.5 mol CH"_4#

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