A_FUrious Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 I was wondering while driving on the turnpike clearly sucking in tons of carbon. When I thought. How many trees need to be, to help me breathe?? It takes six molecules of CO2 to produce one molecule of glucose by photosynthesis, and six molecules of oxygen are released as a by-product. A glucose molecule contains six carbon atoms, so thats a net gain of one molecule of oxygen for every atom of carbon added to the tree. A mature sycamore tree might be around 12m tall and weigh two tonnes, including the roots and leaves. If it grows by 5% each year, it will produce around 100kg of wood, of which 38kg will be carbon. Allowing for the relative molecular weights of oxygen and carbon, this equates to 100kg of oxygen per tree per year. A human breathes about 9.5 tonnes of air in a year, but oxygen only makes up about 23 percent of that air, by mass, and we only extract a little over a third of the oxygen from each breath. That works out to a total of about 740kg of oxygen per year. Which is, very roughly, seven or eight trees worth. Found: http://m.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-many-trees-are-needed-provide-enough-oxygen-one-person Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la122685 Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 This is quite the thought while driving. Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
03SSBoy Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Wow that's pretty interesting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blown 346 Posted August 1, 2014 Report Share Posted August 1, 2014 Thats why when you think of oxygen, we dont breath in 100%. we only take in 21% of Oxygen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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