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Determine the empirical formula of a compound containing 83% potassium and 17.0% oxygen.

a. K2O
b. KO
c. K3O2
d. K4O

User Besa
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Final answer:

To determine the empirical formula of a compound containing 83% potassium and 17.0% oxygen, convert the percentages to moles and find the simplest ratio. In this case, the empirical formula is K2O.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the empirical formula of a compound, we need to convert the percentages of each element to moles and find the simplest ratio of the elements. In this case, we have 83% potassium (K) and 17.0% oxygen (O).

Assuming we have 100g of the compound, we have 83g of K and 17.0g of O.

Now, we need to convert the masses to moles using the elements' atomic masses. We have 83g K / 39.10 g/mol = 2.121 moles K, and 17.0g O / 16.00 g/mol = 1.063 moles O.

Finally, we divide the moles by the smallest moles to get the ratio of the elements. In this case, it is approximately 2:1. Therefore, the empirical formula of the compound is K2O.

User Keval Rathi
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