Question #de464

1 Answer
Jan 4, 2015

The noble gas is Xe and its molar mass is 130.8 g/mol.

What you need to know in order to solve this problem is that molar mass is defined as the mass of the gas divided by how much of the gas you have - the number of moles. So,

M=mnn=mM

Starting from the ideal gas law, you can replace n, the number of moles, with the above equation to get

PV=mMRTM=mRTPV

If you look closer at this, you will notice that you have the formula for density in there as well. SInce

ρ=mV, you get that

M=mVRTP=ρRTP

At STP, the temperature is equal to 273.15 K, and the pressure is equal to 1.00 atm. Since the density of the gas is given to you, you'll get

M=5.84gdm30.082LatmKmol273.15K1.00atm

M=130.8gmol

(remember that 1dm3=1L).