Answer:
A single compound is simultaneously oxidized and reduced.
Explanation:
In chemistry, disproportionation is a simultaneous oxidation and reduction of a single chemical specie.
What this means is that; in a disproportionation reaction, only one compound is both oxidized and reduced. This implies that two products are formed during disproportionation. One is the oxidized product while the other is the reduced product.
Consider the disproportionation of CuCl shown below;
2CuCl -----> CuCl2 + Cu
Here, CuCl2 is the oxidized product while Cu is the reduced product.
The compound 
is formed only by sharing of electrons between the atoms. The structure of the compound is shown in the image.
Each line between two atoms represents the sharing of an electron pair which results in the formation of a single bond. Since, carbon has 4 electrons in its valence shell and hydrogen has 1 electron in its valence shell so in order to complete the octet ( to have 8 electrons in their valence shell, noble gas configuration) to attain stability carbon needs 4 more electrons and hydrogen needs 1 electron. So, sharing of electron will occur as shown in the image and the formed compound is stable in nature.
Since, the bond that is formed by sharing of electrons between atoms is known as covalent bond. So, covalent bonding is most important in .
Data: molar mass 470 g/mol
Percent composition:
Hg = 85.0%
Cl = 15.0%
Solution:
1) Convert % to molar ratios
A. Base: 100 g
=> Hg = 85.0 g / 200.59 g/mol = 0.4235 mol
Cl = 15.0 g / 35.45 g/mol = 0.4231 mol
B. divide by the higher number and round to whole number
Hg = 0.4325 / 0.4231 = 1.00
Cl = 0.4231 / 0.4231 = 1.00
=> Empirical formula = Hg Cl
2) Find the mass of the empirical formula:
HgCl: 200.59 g/mol + 35.45 g/mol = 236.04
3) Determine how many times is the empirical mass contained in the molecular mass:
470 g/mol / 236.04 = 1.99 ≈ 2
=> Molecular formula = Hg2 Cl2.
Answers:
Empirical formula HgCl
Molecular Formula Hg2Cl2
