conversion of %CO2 to micromoles
by RKBMemph on 11/18/05 at 13:43:34

I am looking at metabolic rates of an organism and I have an increase in CO2 in a open respirometry system that I measure as a % of air.  How can I get this into a micro mole amount?

Re: conversion of %CO2 to micromoles
by Robert Fogt on 11/22/05 at 00:37:16

For that you use the Ideal Gas Law.

PV = nRT

using algebra, we can change it to:
n = PV/RT

n is the number of moles of gas, P is atmospheric pressure (in atmospheres), V is the volume (in liters), R is the ideal gas constant, and T is temperature in Kelvin.

So convert your volume to liters, pressure to atmospheres, and temperature to Kelvins. Then use 0.08205 as the gas constant.

That gives you n in moles, multiply by 1,000,000 to change to micromoles.

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