1.) A water sample is found to have 9.0 ppb of chloroform,CHCL3.

Question

How many grams of CHCL3 would be found in a glassful (250 ML) of this water?

Answer 1

9 ppb is so small that you may consider the mass of it negligible; therefore, the volume of water = mass of the water sinc the density is 1.00.
1 ppb = 1 gram/1,000,000 mL.
I would use ratio and proportion to solve.
(1/1,000,000 mL)= (x g/250 mL)

Answer 2

I calculated using the proportion and got 0.00025, and it was wrong. Then I used 9 ppb times 1000000 ml/ 1 ppb = 9000000, and used the proportion setup and still got it wrong.

Answer 3

The 0.00025 for the first one is correct math BUT I made a typo. Of course the 1 should have been a 9.
For (9/10^6)=(x/250)
x = 9*250/10^6 = 0.00225
I made another typo when I wrote 1,000,000 (million) instead of 1,000,000,000(billion).
So (9g/10^9)=(x/250)
x = 9*250/10^9 = 2.25E-6 = 2.25 micrograms.

Technically, 9 ppb = 9 parts (we can use grams) in 1 billion parts BY MASS.
So that is 9 grams in (9 g + 999,999,991 g water) but that is so close to 10^9 that it doesn't matter much and 1 mL = 1 g so 10^9 g = 10^9 mL.
I hope this takes care of your problem. Sorry about the typos. I thought billion but typed million. Thought 9 and typed 1. You'll do that when your 81.

Answer 4

what is 0.00225 in two sigs? i hate sig figs -.-. thank you though.

Answer 5

0.00225 to two s.f. is 0.0022 if you round to the even number. But 0.00225 is not the correct value.
The correct value you are looking for is
2.25 x 10^-6 grams or 2.25 micrograms in 250 mL water. That would be 0.0000022 grams to two s.f. or 2.2 x 10^-6 g to two s.f.