1-pint container of toluene breaks in a room 50' by 100'. Assuming complete evaporation and no ventilation...

Question

What would you expect the concentration of toluene to be in the room, assuming the following:

T = 70*F

mass of water = 1.041 pounds/pint

specific gravity (sp gr) of toluene = 0.866 (the ratio of the mass of toluene to the mass of water at the temperature)

Answer 1

You need the volume of the room, not just the length and width.

Assuming a 10' ceiling, the volume of the room would 50000 ft^3, or 1.415 x 10^6 liters.

1 pint of toluene = 0.473 liters of toluene, which would weigh 409.6 grams, or 4.096 x 10^5 milligrams.

ppm done in mg/L, it would be 4.096 x 10^5/1.415 x 10^6 or 0.289 ppm.

Answer 2

A correction to the above answer. ppm=mg/L is only valid for dilute water solutions, not airborne concentrations. The data is good but it should be liters toluene vapor per million liters of the room. The other unit that is used is mg per cubic meter. I get about 0.34ppm.