Question

Denise owns a car that runs on a mixture of gasoline and ethanol. She can buy fuels that have 85% ethanol or 25% ethanol. How much of each type of fuel should she buy if she wants to fill her 20-gallon tank with a mixture of fuel that contains 50% ethanol?

Answer 1

85% ethanol | 25% ethanol | 50% ethanol
x | y | 20 gal

use x and y because you don;t know how much she needs.

0.85x | 0.25y | 20(0.5)

85% is 85/100 or 0.85, and you need that much of x, same goes for the 25% and 50% mixtures so now you can make up 2 equations
1) x + y = 20 2) 0.85x + 0.25y= 10 (you get 10 when you multiply 20 by 0.5) now you can solve for x or y using substitution.
first rewrite 1) in terms of x or y: x+ y= 20 ----> y= 20 - x now you can substitute 20- x for y in the second equation.. 0.85x + 0.25y= 10 0.85x + 0.25(20-x)= 10 distribute here..(0.25 * 20 and 0.25 * (-x) ) 0.85x + 5 - 0.25x = 10 combine like terms 0.6x +5 = 10 move the 5 over to the other side 0.6x= 10 -5 0.6x = 5 divide both sides by 0.6 x= 25/3 or 8.3 now you know the amount of x so you can substitue this back into the first equation to find y. 0.85x + 0.25y= 10 0.85(25/3) +0.25y= 10 85/12 + 0.25y= 10 0.25y = 10- 85/12 0.25y= 35/12 y= 35/3 or 11.6 you can check by putting these values into the euations: 1) x+ y= 20 25/3 + 35/3 =20 20= 20 good so far 2) 0.85x + 0.25y= 10 0.85(25/3) + 0.25(35/3)=10 10 = 10

so our values for x and y work
x= 25/3 and y= 35/3