How many moles of carbon dioxide and water would a plant have to use to produce 2 mole of glucose?

Question

The balanced equation is 6CO2 6H2O ==> C6H12O6 6O2

Can I just multiply the whole equation by 2, giving an answer of 12 moles of CO2 12 moles of water?

Answer 1

yes you can

Edit: Because you can do that with chemical equations; it is always safe to assume that the coefficients in the equation are in fact moles. I think there is a basic rule or law in chemistry that  allows you to freely multiply the coefficients in an equation to find the moles necessary, so you don't need to over think it.

Answer 2

YES - You have it exactly!

If it takes 6 molecules of Carbon Dioxide and 6 molecules of water to get one molecule of sugar and 6 oxygen pairs - then doubling the inputs (in terms of molecule counts) may double the out put - assuming 100% yield. By switching to moles, we are just multiplying both sides of the equation by a very big number.

Remember that a mole is simply 'Avegadro's number' of molecules. (6.0221415 × 10^23) molecules per mole. It is easier to measure and count moles than molecules. :)