Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Find the mole fraction in the vapor phase.?

given that Pben is 94.6 torr and Ptoluene is 29.1 torr, where the total vapor pressure is 72 torr.

The answers are Pben 0.85 and Ptol 0.15 but i dont' understand how they came up with the answer. Could someone help with a walk through? Thanks!

2 Answers

Relevance
  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Your in Luck.

    so first thing to note is that this is a two component raoult's law problem. Therefore we will need to use these equations.

    Ya*P=Xa*Pa.sat

    Yb*P=Xb*Pb.sat

    Pa.sat and Pb.sat are saturated pressures (vapor partial pressures) which are given to you in the question

    Ya and Yb are mole fractions in the liquid phase ( which we aren't given and will not need)

    Xa and Xb are mole fraction in the vapor phase ( which we are trying to find)

    let a be toluene and b benzene

    We know that sum of mole fraction must equal one.

    so Ya + Yb = 1

    when we rewrite raoult's law using algebra, we see that:

    P= Xa*Pa.sat + Xb*Pb.sat

    Now there is a problem because we have 2 unknowns. This is really easy to deal with since its two component.

    Here we can also say that summation of mole fraction for vapor phase must equal 1.

    Xa +Xb=1

    so

    Xb=1-Xa

    then we plug this back into main equation

    P= Xa*Pa.sat + (1-Xa)*Pb.sat

    solve for Xa then solve for Xb

    Source(s): I took advanced thermodynamics not to long ago and I loved problems like this. If this isn't right then im sry it should be though. :)
  • Jane
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    can you post the work you have done so that it can be seen where you get stuck

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.