Question

Question:One of the few industrial-scale processes that producesorganic compounds electrochemically is used by theMonsanto Company to produce 1,4-dicyanobutane. The reduction reaction is

$2{\text{CH}}_2{\text{=CHCN+2H}}^{+}{\text{+2e}}^{-}\text{→NC-}{\left({\text{CH}}_2\right)}_4\text{-CN}$

The NC-(CH₂)₄--CN is then chemically reduced byhydrogen to H N-(CH₂)₆-NH₂, which is used in theproduction of nylon. What current must be used to pro-duce 150. kg of NC-(CH₂)₄--CN per hour?

Short answer

The current used to produce 150 kg is750 A.

Step-by-step solution

Given information 

The mass is 150 kg. The time value is 1 hr. The reaction for earth metal formation can be given as:

${\text{2CH}}_2{\text{=CHCN+2H}}^{+}{\text{+2e}}^{-}\text{→NC-}{\left({\text{CH}}_2\right)}_4\text{-CN}$

Mole number of electrons required 

The number of moles of electron required can be expressed as:

Moles of electron =$$\begin{gathered} \left(150\text{Kg}\right)\left(\frac{1\text{mol}}{108.14\text{g}}\right)\left(\frac{2\text{mol}}{1\text{molNC-}{\left({\text{CH}}_2\right)}_4\text{-CN}}\right) \\ =277.18{\text{mole}}^{-} \end{gathered}$$

The charge need to release can be denoted as:

charge =$$\begin{gathered} \left(277.18\text{mol}\right)\left(\frac{96485\text{C}}{1\text{mol}}\right) \\ =2.6766\times {10}^8\text{C} \end{gathered}$$

Finding current 

The current can be given as:

$$\begin{gathered} \text{Current=}\frac{\text{charge}\left(\text{C}\right)}{\text{Time}\left(\text{s}\right)} \\ \text{=}\left(\frac{2.6766\times {10}^8\text{C}}{1\text{hr}}\right)\left(\frac{1\text{hr}}{3600\text{sec}}\right) \\ {\text{Current=7.44×10}}^4\text{A} \end{gathered}$$

The current used to produce 150 kg is 750 A.