# About how much carbon monoxide is produced in these two different reations?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture produces a gas cartridge to poison subterranean rodents. The product is provided as a cardboard tube sealed at one end and then loaded with a mixture of 144.6 grams of the following ingredients:

53.0% Sodium Nitrate 28.0% Charcoal 19.0% Inert Ingredients

Once filled, the cardboard tube is sealed at the other end with a thin cardboard cap which can be punctured and a fuse inserted when ready to be used. The gas cartridge's advertised function once lit is to generate a large volume of carbon monoxide that kills the rodent within a few minutes in its burrow. My experience has been it is very effective when used according to the instructions.

The USDA gas cartridge is getting harder to obtain anymore and a commercial producer sells a similar product which is utilized in the same applications. But it is smaller and uses a somewhat different formulation. It does not advertise how the rodent is poisoned, so I don't know if the resulting gas from combustion is primarily CO or something else. My experience has been that it doesn't seem to be as effective as the USDA gas cartridge, but I don't know if it is because of its different formulation or just its smaller size. The 56.7 gram mixture of ingredients in this commercial gas cartridge are as follows:

50.0% Sodium Nitrate 38.0% Sulfur 9.0% Charcoal 3.0% Inert Ingredients

The question is how much carbon monoxide is generated by each of these cartridges when their ingredients are ignited and what are the quantities of other resulting gases? Just straight theory here is good enough for me. I know there are probably variables such as how well the ingredients are ground and mixed and what are used as the inert ingredients in each. But lets just leave those variables out of the equation.

• Straight theory would not tell you much, as long as you are leaving out the crucial variables. That being said, the latter cartridge seems to be acting primarily via $\ce{SO2}$, not $\ce{CO}$. Both are deadly; which death is better, I'm not sure. – Ivan Neretin Dec 22 '15 at 21:24
• I think the CO is probably more humane although it looks like it takes much less Sulfur Dioxide than Carbon Monoxide to result in an effect that is Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health at 100 ppm versus 1200 ppm. See my comment below. – John Hall Dec 22 '15 at 22:55

$\dfrac{56.7*0.09}{144.6*0.28} = 12.6$%