Final answer:
Upon calculating moles of methane and using the stoichiometric relationships from the combustion equation, we determined that starting with 34.6 grams of methane produces approximately 4.312 moles of water. Therefore, the closest whole number to the correct answer is 3 moles of water.
Step-by-step explanation:
To find out how many moles of water (H₂O) will be produced from the reaction of methane (CH₄), we first need to look at the balanced chemical equation for the combustion of methane which is:
CH₄ + 2O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O
From this equation, we can see that one mole of methane produces two moles of water. We must first calculate the number of moles of methane we have:
Molar mass of CH₄ = 12.01 (carbon) + 4 * 1.008 (hydrogen) = 16.04 g/mol
Number of moles of CH₄ = 34.6 g / 16.04 g/mol = 2.156 moles
Since the stoichiometry of the reaction indicates that each mole of methane produces two moles of water:
Number of moles of H₂O = 2 moles of H₂O per mole of CH₄ * 2.156 moles of CH₄ = 4.312 moles
Therefore, the answer closest to our calculation would be:
d. 3 moles (since we usually round to the nearest whole number for these types of questions)