Question

sodium bicarbonate reacts with sulfuric acid to form sodium sulfate, carbon dioxide, and water. calculate the mass od sodium bicarbonate necessary to produce 1.75 g of carbon dioxide gas.

How would i even go about doing this?

Answer 1

If it helps, the balanced equation is 2NaHCO3 + H2SO4 -> Na2SO4 + 2CO2 + H2o

Answer 2

OK, You have carbon only in the carbon dioxide and in the sodium bicarbonate, so the same amount of moles are present from beginning to end in the balanced equation.
Obtain molar mass of CO2 and NaHCO3
Mass of CO2 DIVIDED BY molar mass of CO2 gives moles of CO2.
Check, by equation You have 2 moles of CO2 at the end and 2 moles of NaHCO3 at the beginning
Then the same amount of moles of both are the same. Now You have moles of NaHCO3
MULTIPLY molar mass of NaHCO3 BY moles of NaHCO3 to get only mass of NaHCO3 initial.

Answer 3

1. convert the mass you have to moles
2. using the coefficients of the balanced equation, find how many moles you need
eg. aA + bB -> cC

moles of A/a = moles of C/c

if you had 1 mole of C, n you wanted to find how many moles of A were present, then:

moles of A = moles of C*a/c

3. convert those moles back to grams