Question #fe55f

1 Answer
Jul 9, 2017

I have no idea what your Henry's law constant units are...

[It's possible that you are using a mol fraction version of Henry's law, in which k_H (in "atm") is approximately the numerical reciprocal of the version in units of "M/atm".]

I get "0.048 mols N"_2(g) in the solution, using k_H = 90998.8 "atm". You must adjust accordingly using your 100000 "atm".


REGARDING THE HENRY'S LAW CONSTANT

I cannot trust the Henry's law constant given here. There are no units given.

Using k_H in "M/atm", if I convert my Henry's law constant to what I think is yours...

k_H ("mine")

= 6.1 xx 10^(-4) "mols solute" cdot cancel("L"^(-1) "soln") cdot "atm"^(-1) xx cancel"1 L soln"/(1000 cancel"g water") xx (18.015 cancel"g water")/"1 mol soln"

= 1.0989 xx 10^(-5) "atm"^(-1)

Then in your case, you may have

1/(k_(H)("mine")) = k_(H) ("yours") = "90998.8 atm", which is somewhat close to 100000, I suppose...

MOL FRACTION VERSION OF HENRY'S LAW

So, I simply assume the version of Henry's Law shown below:

P_(gas) = chi_(gas(l))k_H

where:

  • chi_(gas(l)) = (n_(gas))/(n_(gas) + n_(solvent)) is the mol fraction of the gas in the solution.
  • k_H is the Henry's law constant (for the PARTICULAR gas at a SPECIFIED temperature in the SPECIFIED solvent!!). This WILL vary depending on your Henry's law equation, and there ARE multiple versions of this equation!! Keep the units straight.
  • P_(gas) is the vapor pressure of the gas above the solution. Here, it is in "atm".

RELATING TO PARTIAL PRESSURE IN AIR

Since the air vapor pressure is "10 atm", we know that by the definition of partial pressure, and knowing the percent of "N"_2 in air is 78%, the mol fraction of "N"_2 in air is

chi_(N_2(v)) = 0.78.

So, the partial pressure of "N"_2 in the air above the solution is

P_(N_2) = chi_(N_2(v))P_(t ot)

= 0.78 ("10 atm") = "7.8 atm"

GETTING MOLS OF N2

Thus, using the Henry's law constant of "N"_2 in water at "298 K" (not the temperature which was not given in the question!), which I converted above to be 90998.8 "atm", I get a mol fraction of "N"_2 in solution:

chi_(N_2(l)) = P_(N_2)/k_H = ("7.8 atm")/("90998.8 atm")

= 0.00008572

Since we have "10 L" of water, assuming its density is "1000 g/L", and the gas hardly changes the volume of the water:

"10 L water" ~~ "10000 g water" ~~ "555.09 mols water"

And so, the mol fraction allows us to solve for the mols of gas in here:

chi_(N_2(l)) = 0.00008572 = n_(N_2)/(n_(N_2) + n_(H_2O))

= n_(N_2)/(n_(N_2) + 555.09)

=> 0.00008572n_(N_2) + 0.00008572(555.09) = n_(N_2)

=> color(blue)(n_(N_2)) = (0.04758)/(1 - 0.00008572) = 0.0476

~~ color(blue)("0.048 mols N"_2 " in the solution")