Question

Converting between units of pressure?

Hey! So I think I am just overthinking this problem but I am not sure how to go about solving it. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a method used in chemistry and biochemistry to purify chemical substances. The pressures used in this procedure range from around 500 kilopascals (500,000 Pa) to about 60,000 kPa (60,000,000 Pa). It is often convenient to know the pressure in torr. If an HPLC procedure is running at a pressure of 5.10×10^8 Pa , what is its running pressure in torr?

Answer 1

Its running pressure is `3.83 × 10^6color(white)(l)"Torr"`.

Explanation:

The essential conversions to remember are

`"1 atm = 760 Torr"` and

`"1 atm = 101.3 kPa" = 1.013 × 10^5color(white)(l) "Pa"`

Thus,

`1.013 × 10^5color(white)(l) "Pa" = "760 Torr"`

`"1 Pa" = "760 Torr"/(1.013 × 10^5)`

`color(blue)(bar(ul(|color(white)(a/a)"1 Pa" = 7.502 × 10^"-3"color(white)(l)"Torr"color(white)(a/a)|)))" "`

What is a pressure of `5.10 ×10^8color(white)(l) "Pa"` in Torr?

`p = 5.10 ×10^8color(red)(cancel(color(black)("Pa"))) × (7.502× 10^"-3"color(white)(l)"Torr")/(1 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("Pa")))) = 3.83 × 10^6color(white)(l)"Torr"`