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Topic: Percent Composition  (Read 5416 times)

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Offline Zohaib

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Percent Composition
« on: February 24, 2007, 04:11:35 PM »
Describe in general terms how percent composition by mass is obtained by experiment for new compounds. how can this information be calculated for known compounds?

i'm completely stumped on this one, i can't figure it out.

Offline Yggdrasil

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Re: Percent Composition
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2007, 04:29:49 PM »
It might be useful to search the forum for posts on "percent composition" or "empirical formula" and use those as examples to figure out how you should answer your question.  Here are some useful links that I found:

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=10515.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=10022.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=12719.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=9897.0

Offline Zohaib

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Re: Percent Composition
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2007, 04:33:50 PM »
Ok so based on those links i think i've found out how to answer "how can this information be calculated for known compounds" part but, what is classified as new?

Offline Yggdrasil

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Re: Percent Composition
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2007, 08:35:21 PM »
Combustion analysis is one way especially if your compound consists solely of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.  Mass spectrometry can also be used in some cases.

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