Converting between Units of Pressure

Question

High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a method used in chemistry and biochemistry to purify chemical substances. The pressures used in this procedure range from around 500 kilopascals (500,000 ) to about 60,000  (60,000,000 ). It is often convenient to know the pressure in torr. If an HPLC procedure is running at a pressure of 5.99×10⁸  , what is its running pressure in torr?

Answer 1

Use dimensional analysis and conversion factors to answer this. Of course, it would help if we had the units for the pressure of 5.99x108. I'll guess this is supposed to be units of pascal (Pa). That being the case...

Conversion factors:

1 kPa = 1000 Pa = 1x103 Pa

1 atmosphere = 101.325 kPa

1 atmosphere = 760 torr

Dimensional analysis:

5.99x10⁸ Pa x 1 kPa/1x10³ Pa x 1 atm/101.325 kPa x 760 torr/ 1 atm = 4.49x10⁶ torr