What design features should an airbag manufacturer put in place to make a baking soda and vinegar airbag? What are your general recommendations for how they should design this airbag?

Question

What design features would you recommend an airbag manufacturer put in place to make a baking soda and vinegar

airbag? What are considerations for this design? Write 2-3 paragraphs. Be sure to include:

*What are your general recommendations for how they should design this airbag?

*How can the manufacturer keep the chemical reaction from happening before it is needed?

*What can be done to decrease the reaction time (time to inflate) of the airbag?

*An argument for why your baking soda and vinegar airbag is safer than traditional airbags. Note: Remember

that when traditional airbags inflate, they produce a toxic chemical called alkaline silicate as a byproduct, while

your baking soda/vinegar airbag produces a chemical byproduct called sodium acetate. On your laptop, look up

“alkaline silicate MSDS” and “sodium acetate MSDS” (MSDS stands for material safety data sheet) to read about

how dangerous each of these chemicals are; include your findings in your response.

Answer 1

1) Determine what inflated volume the airbag will be (V)

2) Decide what pressure of CO2 gas is desired (P)

3) Define the expected temperature when the bag is inflated (T)

4) From PV = nRT, calculate the number of moles of CO2 that will be needed.

5) Find the molarity of the vinegar to be used, so that you can calculate the volume of vinegar needed.

6) Using the chemical equation, NaHCO3 + HAc ----> CO2 + NaAc + H2O, calculate the number of moles of NaHCO3 needed to supply the required amount of CO2.

7) Calculate the number of moles of HAc needed and then calculate the volume of vinegar to be used to give the required number of moles of acetic acid (HAc).

8) Finally, and this is the hard part, figure out how the NaHCO3 and vinegar will be mixed at the time it is needed.