High temperature combustion processes, such as in combustion engi...

Question

High temperature combustion processes, such as in combustion engines and coal-fired power plants, can result in the reaction of nitrogen and sulfur with oxygen to form nitrogen oxides (NO𝓍) and sulfur oxides (SO𝓍), where x can vary. These NO𝓍 and SO𝓍 compounds subsequently undergo further reaction in the atmosphere to create acidic compounds that contribute to acid rain. a. Do some research to determine the common products that are formed (i.e., what are the values of x) for the reactions of N and S with oxygen. Write balanced equations for these reactions.

Accepted Answer

Welcome back everyone. High temperature combustion usually involves the reaction of hydrocarbon fuels with oxygen gas to form carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. The carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere can dissolve in ocean water resulting in the formation of carbonic acid provide the balanced equation for the combustion of liquid. No nine C nine H 20. So recall that in a combustion reaction, we have our hydrocarbon in this case, no name. Sorry C nine H 20. It's in liquid form and reacting with oxygen gas and we will always form our products as carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. We need to make sure that this reaction is balanced. So we're going to compare our atoms on our reactant side to our product side. On a reacting side, we have the atoms carbon hydrogen and oxygen in which we have nine atoms of carbon, 20 atoms of hydrogen and two atoms of oxygen. On our product side, we also have carbon hydrogen and oxygen. Where on our product side, we have one atom of carbon, three atoms of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen. We want to recall that we can bounce out our equations by bouncing out non oxygen and non hydrogen atoms first. So we're going to balance carbon first Because we have nine carbons on the reactant side will place a coefficient of nine on the product side in front of carbon dioxide to give us now, nine atoms of carbon. And that's going to change our atoms of oxygen on our product side to now a total of nine times two giving us 18 plus one, which would give us 19. So now notice that on our reacting side, we have 10 atoms or sorry 20 atoms of hydrogen and only two atoms of hydrogen on the product side. So if we place a coefficient of 10 in front of our water on the product side, that's going to now give us 20 atoms of hydrogen on the product side and will also change our oxygen to now 18 plus 10, which will give us 28 atoms of oxygen on the product side. And now go Going back to our reaction side, we see that we can place a coefficient of 14 in front of our oxygen gas to now give us a total of 14 times two, which will give us 28 atoms of oxygen on the reactant side. Now fully bouncing out our equation. So this will be the bounced reaction for the combustion of no name C9 age 20. And our answer highlighted in yellow represents the complete bounced equation corresponding to choice be in the multiple choice. So I hope that this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.

Key Concepts

Combustion Reactions

Oxides of Nitrogen and Sulfur

Acid Rain Formation

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