Question #2c86e

1 Answer
May 8, 2017

The molecular formula will be C_6H_6; no prizes for guessing what this molecule is......

Explanation:

As with all these problems, it is useful to assume that there is a 100*g mass of compound, and divide each elemental mass thru by the ATOMIC mass of each component.

And so..........

"moles of carbon"-=(92.5*g)/(12.011*g*mol^-1)=7.70*mol

"moles of hydrogen"-=(7.50*g)/(1.00794*g*mol^-1)=7.50*mol

And if we divide thru by the LOWEST molar quantity we gets.....and empirical formula of CH.

But the molecular formula is always a whole number of the empirical formula:

"molecular formula"="empirical formula"xxn

And so 78*g*mol^-1=nxx(12.011+1.00794)*g*mol^-1; clearly, n=6, and the "molecular formula" is C_6H_6, which is what VERY common organic molecule?