Question

An unknown compound has the following chemical formula:

NO(base) X

where X stands for a whole number.
Measurements also show that a certain sample of the unknown compound contains 7.50 mol of oxygen and 7.3 mol of nitrogen.
Write the complete chemical formula for the unknown compound.

Answer 1

We are given with 7.5 moles of oxygen and 7.43 moles of nitrogen.To identify the chemical formula of the compound, we divide each numner by the smaller amount between the two. Hence, oxygen is approx. equal to 1 and nitrogen is equal to 1. Hence teh formula is NO or nitric oxide.