2006-11-25 10:51:25 · 2 answers · asked by i<3 X-mas 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
If you know the mass ratio of the components of a compound you can determine the empirical formula. What you have to do is convert the mass ratio into a percentage of the compound. Then assuming you have a 100 gram sample the percentages would be the grams of each element.
Then divide the grams of each element by each element's atomic mass. This gives you the moles.
Then divide the moles of each element by the smallest value to get an integer value. If one or more of the values is not an integer, multiply by the smallest number you can to get whole numbers. Then the numbers will be the number of atoms of each element in the compound.
You determine the mass ratio by quantative analysis.
2006-11-25 11:06:54 · answer #1 · answered by Alan Turing 5 · 1⤊ 3⤋
The mass ratio is the relative ratio of the mass of each element to the total mass of a chemical compound. The mass ratio can be used to determine the percent composition of the elements in a compound.
It is found by determining the mass of each element to the total mass of the specimen of a pure compound. Often all but the mass of the last element is determined and the final mass calculated.
The mass ratio is important because the percent composition can be used to determine the chemical formula. This is done by using the atomic mass of each element to calculate the numbers of moles of each atom. This gives the mole ratio of each element in the compound (which is usually the same as the empirical formula).
Check out the reference below for more details.
2006-11-25 20:45:58 · answer #2 · answered by Richard 7 · 10⤊ 1⤋