Question #670ca

1 Answer
Jul 5, 2017

"2 moles N"_2

Explanation:

The decomposition of sodium azide to sodium metal and nitrogen gas can be described by the following balanced chemical equation

color(blue)(2)"NaN"_ (3(s)) stackrel(color(white)(acolor(red)(Delta)aaa))(->) 2"Na"_ ((s)) + color(green)(3)"N"_ (2(g)) uarr

Notice that for every color(blue)(2) moles of sodium azide that undergo decomposition, you get color(green)(3) moles of nitrogen gas.

This means that your reaction will produce

1 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mole NaN"_3))) * (color(green)(3)color(white)(.)"moles N"_2)/(color(blue)(2)color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mole NaN"_3)))) = "1.5 moles N"_2

Keep in mind that the answer must be rounded to one significant figure because that's the number of sig figs you have for your data.

This means that you have

color(darkgreen)(ul(color(black)("moles of N"_2 = "2 moles")))

As a fun fact, it's worth mentioning that this reaction is used to inflate airbags in cars.

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