Midterm Practice Problem #1

[Dominique S 4E]

Isopropyl alcohol, used in rubbing alcohol, is a compound containing only C, H, and O. What is the empirical formula of isopropyl alcohol if you find that 0.255 g of the compound gives 0.561g of CO2 and 0.306 g of H2O when burned completely in excess oxygen?

[Schuyler_Howell_4D]

General steps:

1)Convert grams of each element into moles of the element
2)Take moles of each element and multiply by the ratio of that element in the molecule (1 C/ 1 CO2) so that you get grams of the individual element
3) Take those grams from step 2 and convert from grams of the element to mols of element
4)Divide by the smallest moles to get mole ratio
5) Create Molecular formula

[ArielKim3C]

Here's the work too if you wanted to see what numbers to use and such!