What are the empirical and molecular formulas of maleic acid?

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Answer 1 · 2017-08-02T01:35:06

Molecular formula: $C_{4} H_{4} O_{4}$ $"C"_4"H"_4"O"_4$

Empirical formula: $CHO$ $"CHO"$

Maleic acid has the $sfcolor(red)("molecular formula"$

$color(red)(ulbar(|stackrel(" ")(" " "C"_4"H"_4"O"_4" ")|)$

The $sfcolor(blue)("empirical formula"$ is derived by finding the greatest common factor of the subscripts in the molecular formula.

The subscripts are

So the greatest common divisor is $4$ , and we divide each subscript by $4$ to find the $sfcolor(blue)("empirical formula"$ :

$"C"_(4"/"4)"H"_(4"/"4)"O"_(4"/"4)$

which simplifies to

$color(blue)(ulbar(|stackrel(" ")(" ""CHO"" ")|)$