A pharmaceutical company is investigating an unknown solid that is believed to…
CHEMISTRY · Multi-part · A Level · Chemistry · Amount of substance · Amount of substance
Problem
A pharmaceutical company is investigating an unknown solid that is believed to contain only nitrogen and oxygen. A 2.150 g sample of the solid is decomposed, and all of the nitrogen is collected as gaseous N₂ while all of the oxygen is collected as O₂. The experiment yields 0.674 g of N₂(g) and 0.962 g of O₂(g).
Assume the decomposition goes to completion and that no other gases are produced.
(a) Calculate the empirical formula of the unknown solid.
(b) A second 1.000 g portion of the solid is completely decomposed. Determine the total volume of gas (N₂ and O₂ combined) produced at 298 K and 1.00 atm.
(c) If the solid instead contained a small, unaccounted-for impurity that released an additional 0.020 g of O₂ when decomposed, calculate the percentage error introduced into the empirical formula if this extra oxygen were mistaken as originating from the pure compound.