Question

A compound containing xenon and fluorine was prepared by shining sunlight on a mixture of Xe (0.526 g) and excess F2 gas. If you isolate 0.678 g of the new compound, what is its empirical formula

Answer 1

Answer:

$XeF_2$

Explanation:

Hello!

In this case, according the law of conservation of mass, we can see that, since the total mass of the Xe-F compound is 0.678 g and that of xenon is 0.526 g, we have 0.152 g as the mass of reactants equal the mass of the products. It means that we can compute the moles of each atom in the compound as shown below:

$n_{Xe}=0.526g/131.3g/mol=0.004mol\\\\n_F=0.152g/19.0g/mol=0.008mol$

Now we divide the moles of both reactants by the moles of xenon as those are the fewest ones in order to find their subscripts in the empirical formula:

$Xe=0.004/0.004=1\\\\F=0.008/0.004=2$

Thus, the empirical formula is:

$XeF_2$

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