Empirical Formula

SCGirl

A 0.4647-g sample of a compound known to contain only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen was burned in oxygen to yield 0.8635 g of CO2 and 0.1767 g of H2O. What is the empirical formula of the compound? I don't know how to figure this out without percentages of each element.

oceanflavored22

yeah..this is one of those hard stochiometry problems. but nofear; my teacher told us how to do these a month ago, so i can help you :)

kk..you have to think of it like this:
CxHyOz ---> CO2 + H2O

so for CO2, you find the grams of carbon by...
(12.01 g C) / (44.01 g CO2) = 0.27 g (0.8635) = 0.233 g C in CO2
and for H2O, you do the same thing...
(2.02 g H) / (18.02 g H2O) = 0.11 g (.1767) = 0.0194 g H in H2O
and for O, you do...
(0.4647) - (0.233+0.0194) = and get grams of O
and then you can do the rest...i'm getting tiredd lol.

hope that helped!