Chapter 3, Problem 85E

Chapter
Section
Textbook Problem

A compound that contains only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen is 48.64% C and 8.16% H by mass. What is the empirical formula of this substance?

Interpretation Introduction

Interpretation: The mass percentage of carbon and hydrogen in a compound is given. By using these values, the empirical formula is to be calculated.

Concept introduction: The smallest whole number ratio of atoms in a compound is known as empirical formula.

The formula that gives the number of atoms present in a molecule is known as molecular formula.

To determine: The empirical formula of the compound that contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

Explanation

Given

The percentage composition of carbon (C) is 48.64% .

The percentage composition of hydrogen (H) is 8.16% .

The atomic mass of carbon (C) is 12.01g .

The atomic mass of oxygen (O) is 15.999g .

The atomic mass of hydrogen (H) is 1.008g .

Since the total percentage of the compound containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen is 100% . Therefore, percentage composition of oxygen (O) is,

100%(48.64+8.16)%=43.2%

Formula

The number of moles of each element in 100.0g of compound is calculated by using the formula,

Molesofatom=Masspercentofatom×1molofatomAtomicmass (1)

Substitute the values of mass percent and atomic mass of carbon in above equation.

MolesofC=MasspercentofC×1molofCAtomicmassofC=48.64g×1molofC12.01g=4.050mol

Substitute the values of mass percent and atomic mass of hydrogen in equation (1).

MolesofH=MasspercentofH×1molofHAtomicmassofH=8

Still sussing out bartleby?

Check out a sample textbook solution.

See a sample solution

The Solution to Your Study Problems

Bartleby provides explanations to thousands of textbook problems written by our experts, many with advanced degrees!

Get Started

Find more solutions based on key concepts
{"ft_lang_label":"__label__en","ft_lang_prob":0.76824737,"math_prob":0.9754681,"size":2439,"snap":"2019-43-2019-47","text_gpt3_token_len":514,"char_repetition_ratio":0.16919918,"word_repetition_ratio":0.06413994,"special_character_ratio":0.17384174,"punctuation_ratio":0.091383815,"nsfw_num_words":0,"has_unicode_error":false,"math_prob_llama3":0.99953306,"pos_list":[0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8],"im_url_duplicate_count":[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null],"WARC_HEADER":"{\"WARC-Type\":\"response\",\"WARC-Date\":\"2019-10-23T18:56:07Z\",\"WARC-Record-ID\":\"<urn:uuid:0964c927-8284-49b4-bf63-e8f912b064d2>\",\"Content-Length\":\"674869\",\"Content-Type\":\"application/http; msgtype=response\",\"WARC-Warcinfo-ID\":\"<urn:uuid:5aec7cf5-e423-4401-a515-dbd025ffab48>\",\"WARC-Concurrent-To\":\"<urn:uuid:c27afdae-3a72-4491-9ea0-7947cd014954>\",\"WARC-IP-Address\":\"99.84.181.97\",\"WARC-Target-URI\":\"https://www.bartleby.com/solution-answer/chapter-3-problem-85e-chemistry-10th-edition/9781305957404/a-compound-that-contains-only-carbon-hydrogen-and-oxygen-is-4864percent-c-and-816percent-h-by-mass-what-is/62c4d8c6-a264-11e8-9bb5-0ece094302b6\",\"WARC-Payload-Digest\":\"sha1:GIEGVY2JRQGLULKUWW7AU3RF5WPZH532\",\"WARC-Block-Digest\":\"sha1:FUZXMS3RUZRT44DWF77M5COKWFMB6LBV\",\"WARC-Identified-Payload-Type\":\"text/html\",\"warc_filename\":\"/cc_download/warc_2019/CC-MAIN-2019-43/CC-MAIN-2019-43_segments_1570987835748.66_warc_CC-MAIN-20191023173708-20191023201208-00239.warc.gz\"}"}