Ask Question
30 June, 21:51

A laboratory analysis of vanillin, the flavoring agent in vanilla, determined the mass percent composition: c, 63.15%; h, 5.30%; o, 31.55%. determine the empirical formula of vanillin.

+3
Answers (1)
  1. 1 July, 01:09
    0
    C8H8O3 Lookup the atomic weights of the elements involved: Atomic weight carbon = 12.0107 Atomic weight hydrogen = 1.00794 Atomic weight oxygen = 15.999 Now determine the relative moles of each element by dividing the weight percentage by the atomic weight of each element. Carbon = 63.15 / 12.0107 = 5.257811784 Hydrogen = 5.30 / 1.00794 = 5.258249499 Oxygen = 31.55 / 15.999 = 1.97199825 So we have a ratio of carbon : hydrogen : oxygen of 5.257811784 : 5.258249499 : 1.97199825 We want to create a ratio of small integers that comes close. So start by dividing all the numbers by the smallest. Getting: 2.666235523 : 2.666457488 : 1 Not quite there. We could multiply the above values by 1, 2, 3, etc until we get some values close to integers, but the. 666 values looks rather close to 2/3, so let's multiply the values by 3 and see what we get. 7.998706568 : 7.999372463 : 3 And this looks good. The ratio looks to be 8:8:3 So the empirical formula is C8H8O3
Know the Answer?
Not Sure About the Answer?
Find an answer to your question ✅ “A laboratory analysis of vanillin, the flavoring agent in vanilla, determined the mass percent composition: c, 63.15%; h, 5.30%; o, 31.55%. ...” in 📘 English if you're in doubt about the correctness of the answers or there's no answer, then try to use the smart search and find answers to the similar questions.
Search for Other Answers