Category: Chemical Engineering Math
"Published in Vacaville, California, USA"
Percent composition data for the chlorofluorocarbon Freon-12 by mass are: 9.933% carbon, 58.63% chlorine, and 31.44% fluorine. Based on these data, what is the empirical formula of Freon-12?
Solution:
Basis: 100 grams of sample
Weight of each components:
Weight of carbon is
Weight of chlorine is
Weight of fluorine is
Moles of each components:
Moles of carbon is
Moles of chlorine is
Moles of fluorine is
From the number of moles of each component, we need to divide all of them by their least number of moles which is carbon in order to get the number of atoms in a sample.
Number of carbon in a sample is
Number of chlorine in a sample is
Number of fluorine in a sample is
Therefore, the empirical formula for Freon-12 is