Question

Explain, in detail, how you convert grams of one substance to grams of something else. Be specific and include each step

Answer 1

I will present a simple reaction so we can do this conversion:

2H₂ + O₂ → 2H₂O

We will assume we have 32 g of O₂ and we want to find the amount of water, assuming this reaction goes to completion. We must first convert the initial mass to moles, which we do using the molar mass in units of g/mol. The molar mass of O₂ is 32 g/mol.

32 g O₂ ÷ 32 g/mol = 1 mole O₂.

Now that we have moles of oxygen, we use the molar coefficients to find the ratio of water molecules to oxygen molecules. We can see there are 2 moles of water for every 1 mole of oxygen.

1 moles O₂ x (2 mol H₂O/ 1 mol O₂) = 2 moles H₂O

Now that we have the moles of water, we can convert this amount into grams using the molar mass of water, which is 18 g/mol.

2 moles H₂O x 18 g/mol = 36 g H₂O

Now we have successfully converted the mass of one molecule to the mass of another.