Calculating the percentage of silica

[xiphoid]

Homework Statement

A partially dried clay mineral contains 8% of water, the original sample contained 12% water and 45% silica. Then, the percentage of silica in the partially dried sample is nearly?

Homework Equations

Don't know if this is would help in the calculation,
in the original sample, 12% water is present, hence non water components are consisting of 88%

The Attempt at a Solution

Attempted one but was out of range of the concept to be used.

 

[tiny-tim]

hi xiphoid!

hint: suppose the original sample was 100 g (12 g water, 45 g silica, 43 g other stuff)

 

[xiphoid]

I had that stuff in my mind but couldn't manage to calculate further

hi xiphoid!

hint: suppose the original sample was 100 g (12 g water, 45 g silica, 43 g other stuff)

 

[tiny-tim]

I had that stuff in my mind but couldn't manage to calculate further

ok, after the sample has dried, the water is less but everything else is the same

so call it x g water, 45 g silica, 43 g other stuff, …

from the question, what equation can you find for x ? ​

 

[DeeNos]

The percentage of silica in the partially dried sample can be calculated by first finding the total non-water components in the original sample. Since the original sample contained 12% water, the non-water components make up 88% of the sample. To find the percentage of silica in the original sample, we can use the given information that 45% of the original sample is silica. This means that the remaining 55% of the original sample must be made up of non-silica components.

Now, to find the percentage of silica in the partially dried sample, we can use the information that the clay mineral contains 8% water. This means that the remaining 92% of the sample is non-water components. We can assume that the percentage of non-silica components remains the same in the partially dried sample. Therefore, the percentage of silica in the partially dried sample is (45/55) * 92 = 75.27%.

This calculation assumes that the drying process does not affect the percentage of silica in the sample. However, it is important to note that the drying process could potentially alter the composition of the sample and affect the accuracy of this calculation. Further experimentation and analysis would be needed to confirm the exact percentage of silica in the partially dried sample.