107k views
2 votes
You use bottles of 90% bleach and 70% bleach to make a new household cleaner. How many quarts of each type of bleach should you mix to make 8 quarts of 85% bleach?

User Stex
by
7.9k points

1 Answer

3 votes

Explanation:

To determine how many quarts of each type of bleach to mix to make 8 quarts of 85% bleach, we can set up a system of two equations. Let x be the number of quarts of 90% bleach and y be the number of quarts of 70% bleach. Then:

x + y = 8 (total volume of bleach)

0.9x + 0.7y = 0.85(8) (total amount of active ingredient)

Simplifying the second equation, we get:

0.9x + 0.7y = 6.8

We can then solve for y in the first equation:

y = 8 - x

Substituting this into the second equation, we get:

0.9x + 0.7(8 - x) = 6.8

Simplifying and solving for x, we get:

0.2x = 2

x = 10

Substituting this value back into the equation for y, we get:

y = 8 - x

y = 8 - 10

y = -2

Since we cannot have negative quarts of bleach, this solution is not possible. Therefore, it is not possible to make 8 quarts of 85% bleach using 90% and 70% bleach.

User Rob MacEachern
by
8.1k points