Question

Question #a0bc7

Answer 1

`"0.001 moles"`

Explanation:

As you know, plants use the photosynthesis reaction to convert carbon dioxide and water, in the presence of light and chlorophyll, into glucose and oxygen gas.

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The key to this problem is the balanced chemical equation for the photosynthesis reaction, which looks like this

`6"CO"_text(2(g]) + 6"H"_2"O"_text((l]) + color(blue)("light") -> "C"_6"H"_12"O"_text(6(s]) + 6"O"_text(2(g])`

Notice that you have a `1:1` mole ratio between carbon dioxide and oxygen gas.

More specifically, for every `6` moles of carbon dioxide required by the reaction, `6` moles of oxygen gas are produced.

In your case, you want the chamber to maintain an initial number of `0.003` moles of `"CO"_2`. If the reaction produces `0.001` moles of `"O"_2` per hour, it follows that it consumes, per hour

`0.001 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("moles O"_2))) * "6 moles CO"_2/(6color(red)(cancel(color(black)("moles O"_2)))) = "0.001 moles CO"_2`

This means that the number of moles of carbon dioxide will decrease by `0.001` per hour. In order to keep it constant, you will need to add `0.001` moles of carbon dioxide per hour.