If each astronaut exhales 18.2 mol of CO2 every day and the mission is eight days, what mass of LiOH would exactly meet the requirement?

Question

When the engineers were designing Apollo 13, they had to estimate the amount of CO2 that each astronaut would exhale. Unlike the Lunar Module, the Command and Space Module had enough LiOH to scrub all of the CO2 exhaled by the three men. If each astronaut exhales18.2 mol of CO2 every day and the mission is eight days, what mass of LiOH would exactly meet the requirement?

Answer 1

3 men x 18.2 mol CO₂/men/day x 8 days = 436.8 total mols CO₂ exhaled

2LiOH + CO₂ ==> Li₂CO₃ + H₂O ... balanced equation for scrubbing CO₂ with LiOH

436.8 mols CO₂ x 2 mol LiOH / mol CO₂ x 23.95 g / mol = 20,923 g = 20.9 kg (3 sig. figs.)