Final answer:
The empirical formula of the compound containing 40.0% C, 6.71% H, and 53.28% O is CH2O.
Step-by-step explanation:
The empirical formula of a compound is the simplest ratio of the atoms present in the compound. To determine the empirical formula, we need to find the ratio of the number of atoms of each element in the compound.
Given the percent composition of 40.0% C, 6.71% H, and 53.28% O, we assume we have 100g of the compound. This means we have 40.0g of C, 6.71g of H, and 53.28g of O.
To find the moles of each element, we divide the mass of each element by its molar mass. The molar mass of C is 12.01 g/mol, H is 1.01 g/mol, and O is 16.00 g/mol.
Moles of C = 40.0g C / 12.01 g/mol = 3.33 mol
Moles of H = 6.71g H / 1.01 g/mol = 6.64 mol
Moles of O = 53.28g O / 16.00 g/mol = 3.33 mol
Next, we divide the moles of each element by the smallest number of moles to get the simplest ratio.
C = 3.33 mol / 3.33 mol = 1
H = 6.64 mol / 3.33 mol = 2
O = 3.33 mol / 3.33 mol = 1
Therefore, the empirical formula of the compound is CH2O.