Questions and answers on how to convert things from one unit or system to another
Forum rules
Dear convert-me.com forum visitors,
Our forum has been available for many years. In September 2014 we decided to switch it to read-only mode. Month after month we saw less posts with questions and answers from real people and more spam posts. We were spending more and more resources cleaning the spam until there were less them 1 legitimate message per 100 spam posts. Then we decided it's time to stop.
All the posts in the forum will be available and searchable. We understand there are a lot of useful information and we aren't going to remove anything. As for the new questions, you can always ask them on
convert-me.com FaceBook pageThank you for being with us and sorry for any inconveniences this could caused.
Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:46 pm
jim wrote:
Please explain how to convert m3 of natural gas to btu's. Thanks.
Natural gas is mostly Methane (around 92%), with a variety of other contaminants, including ethane, propane, butane and pentane.
From the Handbook of Chemistry & Physics. Chemical Rubber Co. Press LLC, 2001. Under "Heat of Combustion."
Methane (CH4) has an energy content of 890.8 kJ/mol.
One molecule of Methane would be 1 carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. Carbon has an amu of 12.01 g/mol, and hydrogen has an amu of 1.008 g/mol, so methanes molar weight is:
(1 * 12.01) + (4 * 1.008) = 16.042 g/mol
Finally, looking up methanes density we get 0.717 kg/m³, so:
One cubic meter of Methane weighs 0.717 kg/m³ * 1000 g/kg = 717 grams.
717 grams / 16.042 grams/mol = 44.9 moles of Methane per cubic meter.
44.8 moles * 890.8 kJ/mol = 39,997 kJ, or 40 mJ.
Now, to get to the answer:
There are 1.054 kJ/BTU, so:
39,997 kJ / 1.054 kJ/btu = 37,948 BTU.
So, One cubic meter of natural gas is approximately 37,948 BTU.
