A compound containing only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen is analyzed using combustion analysis. When 50.1 g of the compound is burned, 91.8 g of carbon dioxide and 25.1 g of water are collected. In order to determine the moles of carbon in the compound, first determine the moles of carbon dioxide that were produced from the combustion.

Explanation:

Hello,

In this case, since the carbon of the initial compound is present in the carbon dioxide product, we can compute the mass and moles of carbon in the compound:

Next, the mass and moles of hydrogen in the compound, is contained in the yielded amount of water, thus, we compute the mass and moles of hydrogen in the compound:

In such a way, the mass of oxygen comes from the mass of the compound minus the mass of carbon and oxygen:

And the moles:

Then, we compute the subscripts by diving the moles of C, H and O by the moles of oxygen as the smallest moles:

After that, we write:

Which must be shown in whole number only, thereby we multiply the subscripts by 2, so the empirical formula turns out:

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