Burning Off Fat

          You want to burn off 1 pound of a fat (glyceryl trimyristate, GTM,  C45H86O6) in your body.
(1) How many pounds of oxygen required ?
(2) How many pounds of water and carbon dioxide will be generated?

       a  C45H86O6  +  b O2        ->    c CO2     +  d  H2O

      You must balance it first:
 

     2 C45H86O6  +  127 O2        ->   90 CO2     +  86  H2O

          1 lbs         ( ? ) lbs             ( ? ) lbs       ( ? ) lbs

MM   723.13 g/mol     32.00              44.01          18.02

(1) O2 needed

    (1 lbs Fat)(1 mol/723.13 g) (127 mol O2/2mol Fat) (32g O2/ mol O2) = 2.8 lbs

Note: Conversion of g to lbs is not necesssary in this case.  Why ?
       It  is necessary if the answer is asked for in grams or kg.

(2)    You can work them out in similar way as shown above.

 CO2 generated:
 (1 lbs Fat)(1 mol/723.13 g) (90 mol CO2/2mol Fat) (44.01g CO2/ mol CO2) = 2.7 lbs

H2O generated:
      You write  and work it out to show that the answer is 1.1 lbs.


(10/16/2002, MHK)