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Topic: Poorly worded combustion question? Or am I not getting something?  (Read 2488 times)

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Offline the_zom

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I'm currently doing high school chem via correspondence in order to get my mark up for university admissions.  Problem is, I have precious few resources if I run into questions that don't make sense to me.

The question below is from my text and to me seems like it's missing information.  Would I just determine the products and assume that sufficient amounts of the reactants required are implied or should I take it to mean that there are exactly two oxygen atoms in play here.  Any thoughts?

"All hydrocarbons undergo combustion reactions.  Complete the following combustion reaction equations, including both the structural equation and the word equation"

a) ethyne + O2 -->

b methylbenzene + O2 -->


Offline AWK

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Re: Poorly worded combustion question? Or am I not getting something?
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2011, 09:42:57 AM »
During complete combustion of hydrocarbons always water and carbon dioxide is formed
AWK

Offline the_zom

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Re: Poorly worded combustion question? Or am I not getting something?
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2011, 09:59:09 AM »
So in the end it should look like this?

2C2H2 + 5O2 -->  4CO2 + 2H2O




Offline Borek

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Re: Poorly worded combustion question? Or am I not getting something?
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2011, 10:48:00 AM »
Yes. And nothing wrong with a questions, that's how they are often asked.
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