Excuse me, I was sleepy last night OR my brain was out of town.
I think the empirical formula you had was CHO and the formula mass for CHO is 12+1+16=29
moles = grams/molar mass and rearrange to
molar mass = grams/moles = 31.4 g/0.271 moles = about 117 or so. You can do it more accurately. So how many units of CHO are in the 117; that will be 117/29 = 4.03 which rounds to 4.0 and the molecular formula is (CHO)4 or to put it in more conventional terms it would be C4H4O4
Maleic acid is an organic compound composed of 41.39% C, 3.47% H, and the rest oxygen. If 0.271 mol of maleic acid has a mass of 31.4 g, what are the empirical and molecular formulas of maleic acid?
So I checked the problem again, and yes this is the whole problem. I even copied and paste it from the homework page online. There's no part a or b before it either.... so do you think this problem is doable?
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