a simple hwk question.. i don't understand what i need to do..

1-butanol (shown below) burns in the presence of oxygen to give off carbon dioxide and water by the following reaction:
C4H9OH + 6 O2 ==> 4 CO2 + 5 H2O
If 40.88 mL of 1-butanol burns completely, how many grams of 1-butanol have burned? grams
(Hint: The density of 1-butanol is 0.810 g/mL)

3 answers

You only have to solve for the mass; everything else is irrelevant to the answer. I hate it when teachers give you a bunch of extra information that you do not need to solve a straight forward problem.

Density=mass/volume

So, solve for mass

density *volume=mass=(0.810g/mL)*(40.88mL)=33.1g of 1-butanol

notice that the mL's cancel out and you are only left with grams (g).
wait okay I figured it out till there... but then later I got this question and got stuck
How many moles of 1-butanol does this number of grams represent?
mols = grams/molar mass