Question

A compound consists of carbon, hydrogen, and fluoride. In one experiment, combustion of 2.50g of the compound produced 3.926 g of CO2. Another sample weighing 5.00 g was found to contain 2.54 g of fluoride. The molar mass is found to be 448.4 g/mol. What are the empirical and molecular formulas? (AW(amu) C=12.01 H=1.008 F=19.00)

I’d like someone to please work through this with me, thank you.

Answer 1

on the CO2, find the mass of C. That is the mass of C in the original, and then the percent of C in the total sample.
for the second sample find the mass of hydrogen (massH=total mass-massF-mass Carbon). For the mass of carbon, use the percent C you found before.
Now you have the percents of the three elements. Assume now, you had 1000 grams, so you can calculate the masses of C, H, F in it. Convert that to moles. Now, you can find the mole ratios which correspond to the subscripts of C, H, and F