Solid lithium hydroxide is used in a space vehicles to remove exhaled carbon dioxide from the living environment by forming solid lithium carbonate and liquid water. What mass of gaseous carbon dioxide can be absorbed by 1.00 kg of lithium hydroxide?

1 Answer
Nov 7, 2017

About 921 grams of carbon dioxide will react woth 1.00 kg of lithium hydroxide.

Explanation:

Start with the equation for the reaction:

2 "LiOH"+"CO"_2 \rightarrow "Li"_2"CO"_3+"H"_2"O"

So one mole of lithium hydroxide reacts with one-half mole of carbon dioxide.

By adding up atomic masses we find that one mole of lithium hydroxide weighs about 23.9 grams and one mole of carbon dioxidecweighs about 44.0 grams.

So the ratio of lithium hydroxide to the carbon dioxide it reacts with is 23.9 grams of lithium hydroxide to 22.0 grams of carbon dioxide. Then 1.00 kg =1.00×10^3 grams of lithium will react with:

1.00×10^3"g LiOH"×(22.0 "g CO"_2)/(23.9 "g LiOH")=9.21×10^2"g CO"_2