Mandelic Acid is an organic acid composed of carbon (63.15%), hydrogen (5.30%), and oxygen (31.55%). Its molar mass is 152.14 g/
mol. Determine the empirical and molecular formulas of the acid.
2 answers:
Answer:
Empirical formula is C3H3O
Molecular formula C9H9O3
Explanation:
From the question given, we obtained the following data:
Carbon = 63.15%
Hydrogen = 5.30%
Oxygen = 31.55%
We can obtain the empirical and molecular formula by doing the following as illustrated in the attached file. Please see attachment for explanation.
You might be interested in
We need to first come up with a balanced equation:
→
We know that the molar ratio of hydrogen to oxygen to water now is 4:1:2.
Converting the amount of grams given to moles is as follows:
Hydrogen:
Oxygen:
We know now that the limiting reactant is oxygen. We can then know that the number of moles of water are produced are double the number of moles of oxygen used due to the ratio that we established at the beginning - 4:1:2.
So we now can use 6.25 moles of water as the amount produced.
Then we convert moles of water to grams:
Now we know that there are 112.59g of water produced when we start with 50g of hydrogen and 50g of water.