Burning takes oxygen from the air so it makes sense that the released mass would be higher. Every 12g of C is tied to 32g of O to get CO2. However I would expect the number to be around 500kg (quick calculation) max.
Polyethylene is roughly CH2, and burns into CO2 and H20. So 1.5 moles of oxygen (O2) for each mole of polyethylene. The molar mass of CH2 is 14 and oxygen is 32, so 1 kg of CH2 will result in ~4.5kg of CO2.
How do you figure that? 14g of CH2 results in 44g of CO2 (water we can ignore), so 150kg of CH2 becomes ~470kg of CO2. 1kg of CH2 would give ~3.1kg CO2. Or am I missing something?
