The O'Keefe's have 75 gallons of cucumbers for pickling. The 1.5 M KOH solution costs $3.50 per liter, 9 M H2SO4 solution costs $8 per liter, and ethanol costs $20 per liter. A 50 g jar of alum from the grocery store costs $5.79. Do you think it’s worth the time and trouble for Richard and Diane to make their own alum from discarded aluminum cans? Explain your answer showing all calculations.
Start from the chemical equations of the procedure to make alum 2Al + 2KOH + 6H2O ---> 2KAl(OH)4 + 3H2 KAl(OH)4 + 2H2SO4 + 8H2O ---> KAl(SO4)2.12H2O We we are done in performing all the calculation, I think that their time and trouble is worth to make the alum because for every 75 gallons of pickles, they save $14.00.
