Gaseous ethane ch3ch3 will react with gaseous oxygen o2 to produce gaseous carbon dioxide co2 and gaseous water h2o. suppose 18. g of ethane is mixed with 85.4 g of oxygen. calculate the maximum mass of carbon dioxide that could be produced by the chemical reaction. round your answer to 2 significant digits.

The complete balance chemical reaction for the compounds stated in the problem is:

C2H6 + (7/2) O2 - - - > 2 CO2 + 3 H2O

First, let us find out which is the limiting reactant. We can know by calculating for the moles of reactant.

moles C2H6 = (18 g) (1 mol / 30.07 g) = 0.5986 mol

moles O2 = (85.4 g) (1 mol / 32 g) = 2.6688 mol

The ratio in the chemical reaction is 3.5O2:1C2H6, the given chemicals are in the ratio of:

2.6688O2:0.5986C2H6 = 4.46O2:1C2H6

Therefore this means that there is excess O2 and the C2H6 is our limiting reactant. Therefore we calculate the amount of CO2 based on this.

mass CO2 = (0.5986 mol C2H6) (2 mol CO2 / 1 mol C2H6) (44 g CO2 / mol)

mass CO2 = 52.677g

In 2 significant digits:

mass CO2 = 53 g