Sunday, February 26, 2012

How to find the Molecular formula from the given information?

Naphthalene is a soft covalent solid that is often used in mothballs. Its molar mass is 128.18 g/mol and it contains 93.75% carbon and 6.25% hydrogen. Determine the molecular formula of naphthalene from this information.How to find the Molecular formula from the given information?Let's start with the carbon. 93.75% of 128.18 is 120.17. The atomic weight of carbon is 12, so that's approximately 10 carbon atoms.



6.25 % of 128.18 is 8.01. The atomic weight of hydrogen is 1, so that's 8 hydrogen atoms.



So the molecular formula is C10H8.



Checking up on Wikipedia shows us the structure of the naphthalene molecule and show us that it is indeed C10H8.

No comments:

Post a Comment