Question

Imagine that you burn enough natural gas to release one giga-joule of energy (109 J). Estimate the mass of CO2 released into the atmosphere during this process.

Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4) and has a combustion energy of 55 MJ/kg.

The atomic mass unit is 1.66x10-27 kg. Multiply this by the atomic mass of an element to

get the mass of one atom.

Answer 1

5.0 × 10⁴ g of CO₂

Step-by-step explanation:

First, we write the balanced equation for the combustion of methane.

CH₄ + 1.5 O₂ ⇄ CO₂ + H₂O

Now, we can establish the following relations:

• 16g of CH₄ produce 44g of CO₂
• 1 GJ = 10⁹ J
• 55 MJ (55 × 10⁶ J) are released for every 1 kg (10³g) of CH₄ burned.

Using proportions,

`10^(9) J.(10^(3)gCH_(4) )/(55 * 10^(6) J  ) .(44gCO_(2))/(16gCH_(4)) =5.0 * 10^(4) g CO_(2)`