Finals are coming up and I'm half asleep, which is probably why I'm not understanding this at the moment.
Can someone give me a step by step explanation as to how to get an empirical formula of a compound that's 25.9% nitrogen and 74.1% oxygen?
Can someone give me a step by step explanation as to how to get an empirical formula of a compound that's 25.9% nitrogen and 74.1% oxygen?
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I know your feelings, my finals are coming up too. :c
1. Assume that you have a 100 g sample, and multiply the mass percent by 100 (so it's not a percent anymore). Now you have 25.9 g N, 74.1 g O
2. Find the moles of each element. 1.85 mol N, 4.63 mol O
3. Divide the larger mole amount by the smallest. If you don't get close to a whole number, multiply by two. Usually that fixes the problem.
This problem ends up with 1 N/ 2.5 O. Multiply by two so it's 2 N/ 5 O
Therefore, the compound's empirical formula is N2O5 (can't do subscript, but yeah)
1. Assume that you have a 100 g sample, and multiply the mass percent by 100 (so it's not a percent anymore). Now you have 25.9 g N, 74.1 g O
2. Find the moles of each element. 1.85 mol N, 4.63 mol O
3. Divide the larger mole amount by the smallest. If you don't get close to a whole number, multiply by two. Usually that fixes the problem.
This problem ends up with 1 N/ 2.5 O. Multiply by two so it's 2 N/ 5 O
Therefore, the compound's empirical formula is N2O5 (can't do subscript, but yeah)