Question

Help:
Energy can be produced in our bodies through the oxidation of biological compounds. Balanced equations for the complete oxidation of methane (CH4) and methanol (CH3OH) are written below. Which of these compunds releases moe energy as heat per mole of carbon atoms that undergo oxidation? How much more heat is released by this reaction? Show your work.

CH4(g) + 2O2<-> CO2(g) +2H2O(l)
2CH3H(g) +3O2<-> 2CO2(g) _ 4H2O (l)

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this is look up the heat of formation of each compound. That's the heat required to form each compound from elements. Now subtract the heat required to form the reactants from the heat required to form the products. Is there heat left over? Then this heat will be released when you transform reactants to products. Whichever reaction has more heat left over will release more heat.

Answer 2

Here's a useful little table from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_change_of_formation_%28data_table%29

If you have a textbook, however, I would use the data that's surely in the back of it.