Complete combustion of 5.20 g of a hydrocarbon produced 16.9 g of CO2 and 5.20 g of H2O. What is the empirical formula for the hydrocarbon?
answer: According to question we have given that
5.20 g of Hydrocarbon produce 16.9 g of CO2 and 5.20 g of H2O
Now number of moles of CO2 = 16.9 /44 = 0.384 mol
and, number of moles of H2O = 5.20 / 18 = 0.288 mol
Here the all the carbons comes from the CO2 means number of moles of C = 0.384 mol
and the number of moles of Hydrogen= 2* 0.288 = 0.576 mol
now dividing all these moles with smallest moles we get
C = 1
H = 1.5
Now multiplying these with smallest number which makes it whole number . so multiply by 2 we get
C= 2 and H = 3
Hence , the required empirical formula is comes out to be C2H3.
Thank you .
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