chads quiz question

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

dentcal

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
i was working out one of chads quizes but i came across a question and didn't understand how he got mols of H2O to plug it into the mol fraction. here's the question:

If the vapor pressure of pure water at 20°C is 18 torr, what is the vapor pressure of water above a solution of 5.5m CH3OH?

the answer is 16.4 and the quiz is from video 4.2 Colligative Properties question number 480.
 
i was working out one of chads quizes but i came across a question and didn't understand how he got mols of H2O to plug it into the mol fraction. here's the question:

If the vapor pressure of pure water at 20°C is 18 torr, what is the vapor pressure of water above a solution of 5.5m CH3OH?

the answer is 16.4 and the quiz is from video 4.2 Colligative Properties question number 480.


5.5m CH3OH means 5.5 moles CH3OH for 1 kg of water (lower case m means molality). You can figure how many moles of water are in a kg by dividing 1000 g water / 18 g/mol = 55.55 moles of water. So to find mole fraction,

(55.55 moles water) / (55.55 moles water + 5.5 moles CH3OH) = about 0.91

0.91 is the mole fraction, multiply that by 18 torr to get the 16.4 torr.
 
I am going to take a random shot in the dark with this because I'm not familiar with his quizzes but I believe its because the problem says "5.5m CH3OH" which is molality.

Molality is moles of solute per kg of solvent (water) so I'm guessing the problem has 1kg of water & he converted that to moles of water
 
Top