Question

A mixture of sodium bicarbonate and ammonium bicarbonate is 75.9% bicarbonate by mass. what is the mass percent of sodium bicarbonate in the mixture?

Answer 1

Answer: 24.1%,  under below assumptions.

Justification:

The question is quite ambiguous, because one of the data is not clearly stated. It says that the mixture consists on two compounds:

- sodium bicarbonate, and
- ammonium bicarbonate

.After, it says that it is 75.9 % bicarbonate, but it does not specify which bicarbonate, it might be the sodium bicarbonate or the ammonium bicarbonate. It is apparent that you omitted that information by error.

Given that later, the question is what the mass percent of sodium bicarbonate is in the mixture, it is supposed that the 75.9% content is of ammonium bicarbonate.

With that said, you can calculate the mass percent of sodium bicarbonate, because there are only two compounds and so you know that both add up the 100% of the mixture.

In formulas:

100% = %m/m sodium bicarbonate + %m/m ammonium bicarbonate = 100%

=> % m/m sodium bicarbonate = 100% - % m/s ammonium bicarbonate

=> % sodium bicarbonate = 100% - 75.9% = 24.1%

Answer: 24.1%