What is the empirical formula of a substance that contains 2.64 g of C, 0.887 g of H and 3.52 g of O?
Answers
Answer:
The empirical formula for a chemical substance is the simplest way to show how many atoms of an element are present. It gives the simplest whole-number ratio of the atoms present in a way that does not show how these atoms are bonded to each other.
Explanation:
Step 1: We need to convert the given masses of each element into moles, using the equation:
M
o
l
e
s
=
M
a
s
s
A
r
where Ar is the atomic mass of the atom.
M
o
l
e
s
C
=
2.64
g
12.01
g
/
m
o
l
=
0.2198
m
o
l
M
o
l
e
s
H
=
0.887
g
1.01
g
/
m
o
l
=
0.8782
m
o
l
M
o
l
e
s
O
=
3.52
g
15.99
g
/
m
o
l
=
0.2201
m
o
l
Step 2: now we need to divide each value of moles by the smallest number of moles. This will give us the ratio in which the atoms are present respective of one another.
C
=
0.2198
m
o
l
0.2198
m
o
l
=
1
H
=
0.8782
m
o
l
0.2198
m
o
l
=
4
O
=
0.2201
m
o
l
0.2198
m
o
l
=
1
Step 3: using the ratios calculated above we have our empirical formula
C
H
4
O
