Question

A compound contains 27.3 g of C and 72.7 g of O what is the empirical formula for this compound

Answer 1

To determine the empirical formula for a compound with 27.3 g of carbon and 72.7 g of oxygen, convert the masses to moles, find the simplest mole ratio between C and O, and deduce that the empirical formula is CO₂.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the empirical formula for a compound containing 27.3 g of C (carbon) and 72.7 g of O (oxygen), we first need to convert these masses to moles by using the atomic masses from the periodic table (approximately 12.01 g/mol for C and 16.00 g/mol for O).

For carbon: 27.3 g C × (1 mol C / 12.01 g C) = 2.274 moles C

For oxygen: 72.7 g O × (1 mol O / 16.00 g O) = 4.544 moles O

Now we divide both mole amounts by the smallest number of moles to find the simplest whole number ratio:

For carbon: 2.274 moles C / 2.274 = 1

For oxygen: 4.544 moles O / 2.274 = 2

Since the resulting ratio is one carbon to two oxygen atoms, the empirical formula is CO₂.

Answer 2

CO₂

Step-by-step explanation:

First you want to get the number of moles (mass/atomic or molecular mass):

Carbon has an atomic mass of 12 : 27.3/12 = 2.275

Oxygen has an atomic mass of 16 : 72.7/16 = 4.54375

Then you want to find the ratio:

2.275:4.54375 = 1:1.997

Then you want to round off:

1 : 2

Then substitute

CO₂