Question

High-density polyethylene may be chlorinated by inducing the random substitution of chlorine atoms for hydrogen. Determine the concentration of Cl (in wt%) that must be added if this substitution occurs for 6% of all the original hydrogen atoms.

Answer 1

Explanation:

Let us assume that 50 carbon atoms are available with possible 100 site bondings. It is given here that 94% are occupied by hydrogen (94 out of 100) and 6% (6 out of 100) are occupied by chlorine atom.

Therefore, moles of carbon = 50

                  moles of hydrogen = 94

                  moles of chlorine = 6

Therefore,

  Mass of 50 carbon atoms = $50 \times 12.01 g/mol$ = 600.5 g/mol

  Mass of 94 hydrogen atoms = $94 \times 1.008 g/mol$ = 94.752 g/mol

  Mass of 6 chlorine atoms = $6 \times 35.45 g/mol$ = 212.7 g/mol

Therefore, concentration of chlorine is as follows.

              $C_{cl} = \frac{m_{cl}}{m_{c} + m_{H} + m_{cl}}$

                         = $\frac{212.7}{907.952} \times 100$

                         = 23.42%

thus, we can conclude that the concentration of Cl is 23.42%.