Oxygen consumed by a living organism in aerobic reactions is used in adding mass to the organism and/or the production of chemicals and carbon dioxide. Since we may not know the molecular compositions of all species in such a reaction, it is common to define the ratio of moles of CO2 produced per mole of O2 consumed as the respiratory quotient, RQ, where 

Since it generally is impossible to predict values of RQ, they must be determined from operating data. Mammalian cells are used in a bioreactor to convert glucose to glutamic acid by the reaction 

The feed to the bioreactor comprises 1.00x10² mol C₆H₁₂O₆ /day, 1.20x10² mol NH₃ /day, and 1.10x10² mol O₂/day. Data on the system show that RQ = 0.45 mol CO₂ produced/mol O₂ consumed.

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nco2 noz nco2 or RQ %D no2