Question

One of the air-purification methods for enclosed spaces involves the use of "scrubbers" containing aqueous lithium hydroxide, which reacts with carbon dioxide to produce lithium carbonate and water: 2 LiOH(aq) + 2 CO2(g) ? Li2CO3(s) + H2O(l) Consider the air supply in a submarine with a total volume of 1.90 × 10^5 L. The pressure is 0.9960 atm, and the temperature is 25°C. If the pressure in the submarine drops by 0.0100 atm as the result of carbon dioxide being consumed by an aqueous lithium hydroxide scrubber, how many moles of CO2 are consumed?

Answer 1

Given: Total Volume, V=1.9*10⁵ L

Temperature of air, T=25⁰C= 298.15 K

Initial pressure, P₁=0.9960 atm

When the pressure drops by 0.01 atm, P₂=0.9960 atm-0.0100 atm=0.986 atm

Change in pressure, P=0.9960 atm-0.986 atm=0.01 atm

For changing pressure, the number of moles of CO₂ consumed is

where n_CO2 is the Number of moles of CO₂ consumed

V is the Volume

P is the Change in Pressure

T is the Temperature

R is the Gas Constant, R=0.08206 L atm/mol K

Substitute the values

Thus the number of moles of CO₂ consumed is 79.4 moles.