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of air by 10

Please help! I thought this wouldn't be too difficult but I've been stuck for at least an hour now- so frustrating! Thank you so much in advance!
Edit: Thank you for the comment, here's what I did:
Let the specific heat capacity of air be

1.15

(this is apparently the heat capacity for some average temperature and pressure- not sure if

J
g K

it's reliable or not)

E= mcT
= 150, 000, 000 cm

1.15 10

= 1, 725, 000, 000 J = 1, 725, 000 kJ

Any help as to where I go from here? It appears that I should find out how many mol of CH4 is needed to produce 1, 725, 000 kJ (which is
the enthalpy change or H ) and then find the volume of CH4 but I have no idea how to do that- either because I am not using the right
information or I'm just not very good with calculations (probably a mixture of both). Do I find the moles of CH4 in the room first?
Second edit: Sorry! It's because half of them are just invalid as I got confused over which numbers to use and where. I tried using Charles'
Law V1 /T1 = V2 /T2 but that didn't work, then I thought I would find the enthalpy change but my units got messed up and there were all
sorts of odd numbers coming up. Plus I spent quite a bit of time finding the heat capacities and densities etc.
Third edit: I solved it! First found out the
change of

CH

homework

from

E = mcT

thermodynamics

energy

11

= v/24000

CH

needed to fill room (using knowledge that enthalpy

gas-laws

edited May 12 at 6:10

Martin
5,514

of room, then mol of

is 891 kJ mol 1 . Lastly found out volume by n

asked Dec 1 '13 at 11:52

sonder
31
4

44

The only values you need to look up to do the calculation are the molar combustion enthalpy of methane and the
volumetric heat capacity of air (actually you could even approximate the heat capacity to that of an ideal diatomic
gas). Does that help? Nicolau Saker Neto Dec 1 '13 at 12:31

If you've been working on it for 'at least an hour' then can you show us what you have done, equations you have
used, and why you disregarded those approaches? bobthechemist Dec 1 '13 at 13:17
New edits. Thank you very much sonder Dec 1 '13 at 13:38
You've solved half of the problem; you know how much heat it takes to produce the required warming. Now, all you
need to know is how much methane produces that heat. Using the molar combustion enthalpy of methane, you can
find out how many moles it takes. With the number of moles, I imagine all you need to do is apply P V = nRT in
some reasonable conditions, such as P = 1 bar and T = 298 K . Got it? Nicolau Saker Neto Dec 1 '13 at
20:19

Wait, now I see you have a problem with units. If the specific heat of air you found is given in units of J g 1 K 1 ,
then you need to find the mass of air in 150 m3 . You need to know the initial temperature of the room to calculate
it, though. Nicolau Saker Neto Dec 1 '13 at 20:31

1 Answer
1)
E= mcT
J
= 1.012
g

(150 m

1.2 g/L) 10

= 1821.6 kJ

2) Find Mol CH4 required to fill room

CH

releases 891 kJ per mol

= 1.8216 10

kJ
kJ/891
mol

= 2.04 10

3)

mol

help

Take the 2-minute tour

Volume of gas needed to heat air in room

How much methane gas ( cm 3 ) is required heat 150

tour

n= v/24000

cm

v= n 24000
= 2.04 10

cm

mol 24000 cm

= 49066 10

cm

(coloured items are added by Martin upon Nicolau's comment.)

edited Jun 11 at 6:49
Martin
5,514

Note that 150

at 0:24

answered Dec 2 '13 at 8:10

11

44

= 150, 000 L

sonder
31
4
, so your answer is off by a factor of a thousand. Nicolau Saker Neto Dec 3 '13

due to colors answer does not look boring :) Freddy Jun 11 at 10:19