Final answer:
The question pertains to combustion analysis, a chemical method used to analyze the composition of a compound by burning it and measuring the resultant CO2 and H2O to determine its empirical formula.
Step-by-step explanation:
The subject question is related to the determination of the empirical formula of a compound through the method of combustion analysis. In this method, the compound undergoes complete combustion in the presence of oxygen, leading to the production of CO2 and H2O. The masses of these products are then used to calculate the amounts of carbon and hydrogen in the original compound.
To solve such problems, one must first convert the mass of CO2 produced to the mass of carbon and the mass of H2O to the mass of hydrogen. This is possible because we know the fixed composition by mass within these molecules. Once the amount of carbon and hydrogen is known, the rest of the mass is assumed to be oxygen since no other elements were mentioned.
The final step involves calculating the empirical formula by using the relative amounts of each element in moles, and these values can be determined through careful stoichiometric calculations based on the molar masses of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.