Question

Cellular respiration uses 1 molecule of glucose to produce approximately how many ATP molecules?

Answer 1

Here's a figure from my general biology text,

If you need more detail:

Glucose undergoes glycolysis, uses `2ATP` and produces `4ATP` through various biochemical reactions which I don't want to give you a headache explaining.

From there, 2 pyruvate molecules undergo processing: the remaining acetyl unit interacts with coenzyme A to produce the beginning molecules for the feared and infamous Krebs cycle.

This is where I'll just tell you eventually all of these electron acceptors (e.g. `NADH`, and `FADH_2`) fuel an electron-transport chain and produce approximately `29ATP` per glucose monomer.

Theoretically we should get somewhere near `40`, but some fun biochemistry occurs that prevents this from happening.