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? asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 6 years ago

I divided 2.42e6 j/kg by 55.49 moles if H2O and got 43608.4 and it was wrong where did i mess up?

When perspiration on the human body absorbs heat, some of the perspiration turns into water vapor. The latent heat of vaporization at body temperature (37° C) is 2.42 x10^6 J/kg. The heat absorbed is approximately equal to the average energy E given to a single water molecule (H2O) times the number of water molecules that are vaporized. What is E?

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  • 6 years ago
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    This is a bit long as I've tried to explain the method in detail.

    First, find the mass of 1 molecule of water. There are various ways to do this. Here's one.

    The atomic mass of hydrogen is 1g.

    The atomic mass of oxygen is 16g.

    So the molecular mass of water (H₂O) is 2x1 + 16 = 18g = 0.018kg.

    The molecular mass is the same thing as the molar mass. So 1 mole of water has a mass of 0.018kg.

    1 mole of water contains Avogadro' number of molecules (6.022x10²³ molecules). So the mass of 1 water molecule is

    0.018 / (6.022x10²³) = 2.99x10⁻²⁶ kg.

    ______________________

    The latent heat of vaporization is 2.42 x10⁶ J/kg. This means if you have 1kg of water, 2.42x10⁶ J are needed to turn it to vapour.

    The mass of 1 water molecule is 2.99x10⁻²⁶ kg. Therefore the number of molecules in 1kg of water is:

    1 / (2.99x10⁻²⁶) = 3.34x10²⁵ molecules.

    So we must supply 2.42x10⁶ J to vapourize 3.34x10²⁵ molecules.

    That means the average energy, E, given to each molecule is:

    E = 2.42x10⁶ / (3.34x10²⁵) = 7.25x10⁻²⁰ J

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