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Calculate Empirical Formula

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49 views28 pages

Calculate Empirical Formula

Uploaded by

Charisse Corral
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Empirical Formula

From The Percent


Composition Of A
Compound

GENERAL CHEMISTRY 1
First Quarter
At times, a chemist isolates a chemical
compound - say, from an exotic tropical plant and
has no idea what it is. A report from an analytical
laboratory on the percent composition of the
compound yields data needed to determine its
formula.
Percent composition establishes the relative
proportions of the elements in a compound on a mass
basis. A chemical formula requires these proportions
GENERAL
to be on a mole basis, that CHEMISTRY 1
is, in terms of numbers of
First Quarter
atoms.
Chemists use a variety of notations to describe
and summarize the atomic constituents of compounds.
Empirical formulas are the simplest form of notation.
They provide the lowest whole number ratio between
the elements in a compound. The molecular formula
for a compound is equal to, or a whole-number
multiple of, its empirical formula.
Furthermore, the empirical formula of a
compound can be calculated from the percent
composition.GENERAL CHEMISTRY 1
First Quarter
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
• Calculate the empirical formula from the percent
composition of a compound
• What information can you obtain from the chemical
formula?

CO2
• Information from the chemical formula
CO2

a. The compound is made up of two elements, namely


carbon and oxygen.

b. One molecule of CO2 is made up of one atom of carbon


and two atoms of oxygen.
• Information from the chemical formula
CO2

c. One mole of CO2 molecules will have one mole of C


atoms and two moles of O atoms.

d. CO2 is composed of 27.29% carbon and 72.71%


oxygen. The chemical formula provides the percent
composition of CO2.
Percent Composition by Mass

• The percent composition by mass is the percent by mass


of each element in a compound. Mathematically,

with n = the number of atoms of the element


Percent Composition by Mass

• For CO2
Practice Exercises:
I. Calculate the percent composition of NaCl.
II. The chemical formula of glucose is C6H12O6. Determine
its percent composition.
III. Which element comprising Mg(OH)2 has the highest
percentage by mass?
Empirical Formula from Percent Composition

• The empirical formula of a compound can be calculated


from the percent composition. Because percentage is
given, it is convenient to assume 100.00 grams
Steps to Determine the Empirical Formula
1. If the data given were in the form of % composition, base
your computations on a 100 g sample of the compound. In
these assumptions, the number of grams of each element
equals the % composition of that element in a compound.

2. Convert the given mass of each element to mole.


(no. of mole = mass of the element/atomic mass of the
element)
n=mass in grams/molar mass
Steps to Determine the Empirical Formula
3. Divide the mole of each element with the smallest mole
value. Express the quotient with one decimal point. If any of
the following elements has 0.5 on its quotient multiply each
by 2.

4. The quotient in Step 3 becomes the subscript of each


element, the result is the empirical formula.
Steps Calculating Empirical Formula
Illustrative examples:
A compound is found to consist of 7.81% C and 92.19%
Cl. What is the empirical formula of the compound?
Steps Calculating Empirical Formula
Illustrative examples:
Assume 100.00 grams of the compound. The sample will
therefore contain 7.81 g C and 92.19 g Cl. The grams are
converted to moles to get the ratios of the moles of the
elements in the compound:
Steps Calculating Empirical Formula
Illustrative examples:

mole of C =

mole of Cl =
Steps Calculating Empirical Formula
Illustrative examples:
Steps Calculating Empirical Formula
Illustrative examples:
Finding the Empirical Formula and Molecular
Formula of the Compound
Illustrative examples:
A compound is found to consist of 43.64% P and
56.36% O. The molar mass for the compound is 283.88
g/mol. What is the empirical formula and molecular formula
of the compound?
Illustrative examples:
Assume 100.00 grams of the compound. What is the
mass of each element in 100.00 grams of compound?
P 43.64 g O 56.36 g

What are the moles of each element in 100.00 grams of compound?


mole of P =

mole of O =
Illustrative examples:
What is the molecular formula?
Evaluation
Aspirin has the molecular formula C9H8O4.
_____1. What is the % C in aspirin by mass in aspirin?
_____2. What is the % O in aspirin by mass in aspirin?

_____3. An oxide of chromium is made up of 5.20 g


chromium and 5.60 g oxygen What is the empirical formula
of the oxide?
Evaluation
An oxide of nitrogen contains 63.1% oxygen and has a
molar mass of 76.0 g/mol.
_____4. What is the empirical formula for this compound?
_____5. What is the molecular formula of the compound?
s
Assessment:

1. Imagine yourself as an analytical chemist who


analyzed a sample of a compound that is found to
contain 40.05 % and 59.95% oxygen. What is the
empirical formula of the compound?
Assessment:

2.Determine a formula from the experimentally


determined percent composition of the compound 2-
deoxyribose, a sugar that is a basic constituent of DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid). The mass percent composition
of 2-deoxyribose is 44.77% C, 7.52% H, and 47.71% O.

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