Question

A compound is found to contain 45.71 % oxygen and 54.29 % fluorine by mass. What is the empirical formula for this compound? To answer the question, enter the elements in the order presented above.

Answer 1

The empirical formula of the compound is OF2.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the empirical formula of a compound, we need to find the simplest whole number ratio of the elements present in the compound. In this case, we have 45.71% oxygen and 54.29% fluorine. We can assume we have 100g of the compound, so we have 45.71g of oxygen and 54.29g of fluorine.

We need to convert the masses to moles by dividing by the respective atomic masses. The atomic masses of oxygen and fluorine are approximately 16g/mol and 19g/mol, respectively. So, we have

Oxygen moles = 45.71g / 16g/mol ≈ 2.857 moles

Fluorine moles = 54.29g / 19g/mol ≈ 2.856 moles

To find the simplest whole number ratio, we need to divide the moles of each element by the smallest number of moles. In this case, both oxygen and fluorine have approximately 2.856 moles. So, the empirical formula of the compound is OF2.