Question

If the capacity of the lungs of an adult were 3.8 L, how many moles of air would the lungs contain at body temperature and atmospheric pressure?

Answer 1

Answer:

• 0.14955  mol

Explanation:

We can solve this problem using the ideal gas law

$P \ V = \ n \ R \ T$

where P is the pressure, V the volume, n the number of moles, R the ideal gas constant and T the temperature.

We can use the atmospheric pressure as 1 atm, and the body temperature as 36.5 °C, in Kelvin this is:

$T_{body} = 36.5 \° C = (36.5 + 273.15) K = 309.65 \ K$

The ideal gas constant is:

$R = 0.082057 \frac{L \ atm}{ K \ mol}$

taking all this in consideration, the number of moles will be:

$n = \frac{P \ V}{ R \ T }$

$n = \frac{1 \ atm * 3.8 \ L }{ 0.082057 \frac{L \ atm}{ K \ mol}$ *  309.65 \ K } [/tex]

$n = 0.14955 \ mol$