Teh molar mass of a compund is 92.0g/mol. Analysis of the compound indicates that it contains .606g Nitrogen and 1.339g Oxygen. Find its molecular formula? I was wondering can oyu explain how you received your answer
Convert grams to mols.
mols nitrogen = 0.606/14 = 0.0430
mols oxygen = 1.339/16 = 0.0837
So the formula is
N0.0430O0.0837
BUT we know that elements combine in the ratio of small whole numbers; therefore, we want to convert those subscripts to small whole numbers. How can we do that? We can divide the smaller number by itself which forces it to be 1.00. Then to keep the equality between the atoms we divide the other number by that same divisor. Like so.
0.0430/0.0430 = 1.00 = N
0.0837/0.0430 = 1.95 = O which is close enough to round to 2.
The formula is NO2.
Thanks very much I kinds figured that is how it goes down