Chemical Analysis: Finding the Empirical Formula
What are the mass percentages of Carbon and Hydrogen in naproxen?
In a combustion analysis of naproxen, it was found to contain 73.03% C and 6.13% H.
The empirical formula of naproxen, derived after converting mass percentages of Carbon and Hydrogen to moles, is C6H6.
The percentages given refer to the mass percentage of Carbon (C) and Hydrogen (H) in the compound. With the mass percentages, we can assume a 100g of the compound, which gives us 73.03g of Carbon and 6.13g of Hydrogen. We then need to convert these amounts into moles by dividing by the atomic weight. For Carbon, it would be 73.03g / 12.01g/mole = 6.08 moles, and for Hydrogen, 6.13g / 1.008g/mole = 6.08 moles. As we don't have information about other elements, it seems their contribution rounds the percentages so the empirical formula is C6H6.
When conducting a combustion analysis of naproxen, scientists discovered that the compound contains 73.03% Carbon (C) and 6.13% Hydrogen (H). This information allows us to determine the empirical formula of naproxen by converting the mass percentages of Carbon and Hydrogen into moles.
To begin, assuming we have 100g of naproxen, we would have 73.03g of Carbon and 6.13g of Hydrogen. By dividing these amounts by the respective atomic weights (12.01g/mole for Carbon and 1.008g/mole for Hydrogen), we find that there are approximately 6.08 moles of each element present in the compound.
Since we do not have data on any other elements present in naproxen, we can conclude that the compound consists of 6 moles of Carbon and 6 moles of Hydrogen, giving us the empirical formula C6H6.