Final answer:
Approximately 8.53 grams of nitrogen is required to react with 16 grams of oxygen.
Step-by-step explanation:
To determine the mass of nitrogen required to react with 16 grams of oxygen, we need to set up a balanced chemical equation that represents the reaction between nitrogen and oxygen. The balanced equation is:
2 N₂ + O₂ → 2 NO
From the equation, we can see that 2 moles of nitrogen react with 1 mole of oxygen to produce 2 moles of nitrogen monoxide. Using the molar masses of nitrogen and oxygen (14 g/mol and 16 g/mol, respectively), we can calculate the molar mass of nitrogen monoxide as 30 g/mol.
Since the ratio of nitrogen to oxygen in the balanced equation is 2:1, we can set up a proportion to find the mass of nitrogen needed:
(16 g O₂) / (30 g N₂O) = (x g N₂) / (1 g O₂)
Solving for x, we find that approximately 8.53 grams of nitrogen is required to react with 16 grams of oxygen.