Question

A tank of gas has partial pressures of nitrogen and oxygen equal to `1.61 xx 10^4` `"kPa"` and `4.34 xx 10^5` `"kPa"`, respectively. What is the total pressure of the tank?

Answer 1

`4.50 * 10^5` `"kPa"`

Explanation:

The idea here is that when the volume and the temperature of a gaseous mixture are kept constant, the total pressure of the mixture is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of its gaseous components `->` this is known as Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures.

In your case, you know that the mixture contains nitrogen gas, `"N"_2`, and oxygen gas, `"O"_2`, which means that the total pressure of the mixture will be

`P_"total" = P_ ("N" _ 2) + P_ ("O"_ 2)`

Plug in your values to find

`P_"total" = 1.61 * 10^4color(white)(.)"kPa" + 4.34 * 10^5color(white)(.)"kPa"`

`P_"total" = color(darkgreen)(ul(color(black)(4.50 * 10^5color(white)(.)"kPa")))`

The answer is rounded to two decimal places, the number of decimal places you have for your values.