Approximately 220 million tires are discarded in the U. S. each year. These tires present a disposal problem because they take up space, harbor pests, and have been known to catch fire. One tire can generate about 250,000 BTUs (1 BTU = 3 x 10 -4 kWh) when it is burned. The average American home consumes about 10,000 kWh of electricity per year. How many tires would be needed to meet the annual electricity demand of ten homes for one year if the production of electricity from tires is 50% efficient?

2667 tires are needed to meet the demand of ten homes for one year.

Explanation:

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, only a part of generated energy when tires are burned can be utilized due to irreversibilities associated with finite temperature differences. The energy from a tire that can be transformed into electricity (), measured in kilowatt-hours, is estimated by definition of efficiency:

Where:

- Efficiency, dimensionless.

- Energy liberated by burning, measured in kilowatt-hours.

Given that and , the amount of energy per year generated by a tire is:

Now, the amount of tires needed to meet the demand of then homes for one year is:

2667 tires are needed to meet the demand of ten homes for one year.

it is to be noted that an alpha particle is an helium nucleus. so it contains 2 protons 2 neutrons and has a mass number of 4. when alpha decay particles are ejected from the nucleus it gets transformed into an atom which has atomic number less than 2 and a mass number less than 4.

an equation that could represent alpha decay is radium 226 decay of alpha particle forms radon 222.

→