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Chemistry LibreTexts

7: Chemical Composition

  • Page ID
    531359
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    Chapter 6 is concerned with the amounts of substances which participate in chemical reactions, the quantities of heat given off or absorbed when reactions occur, and the volumes of solutions which react exactly with one another. These seemingly unrelated subjects are discussed together because many of the calculations involving them are almost identical in form. The same is true of the density calculations, and of the calculations involving molar mass and the Avogadro constant.

    • 7.1: Prelude to Chemical Composition - How Much Sodium?
      Why is knowledge of composition important? Everything in nature is either chemically or physically combined with other substances. To find the amount of a material in a sample, you need to know what fraction of the sample it is.
    • 7.2: Counting Nails by the Pound
      The size of molecule is so small that it is physically difficult, if not impossible, to directly count out molecules. However, we can count them indirectly by using a common trick of "counting by weighing".
    • 7.3: Counting Atoms by the Gram
      In chemistry, it is impossible to deal with a single atom or molecule because we can't see them or count them or weigh them. Chemists have selected a number of particles with which to work that is convenient. Since molecules are extremely small, you may suspect this number is going to be very large and you are right. The number of particles in this group is Avagadro's number and the name of this group is the mole.
    • 7.4: Counting Molecules by the Gram
      The molecular mass of a substance is the sum of the average masses of the atoms in one molecule of a substance. Calculations for formula mass and molecular mass are described. Calculations involving conversions between moles of a material and the mass of that material are described. Calculations are illustrated for conversions between mass and number of particles.
    • 7.5: Chemical Formulas as Conversion Factors
      Using formulas to indicate how many atoms of each element we have in a substance, we can relate the number of moles of molecules to the number of moles of atoms.  In any given formula the ratio of the number of moles of molecules (or formula units) to the number of moles of atoms can be used as a conversion factor.
    • 7.6: Making Molecules- Mole-to-Mole Conversions
      Previously, you learned to balance chemical equations by comparing the numbers of each type of atom in the reactants and products. The coefficients in front of the chemical formulas represent the numbers of molecules or formula units (depending on the type of substance). In this section, we will extend the meaning of the coefficients in a chemical equation.
    • 7.7: Making Molecules- Mass-to-Mass Conversions
      We have used balanced equations to set up ratios, in terms of moles of materials, that we can use as conversion factors to answer stoichiometric questions—such as how many moles of substance A react with so many moles of reactant B. We can extend this technique even further. Recall that we can relate a molar amount to a mass amount using molar mass. We can use that relation to answer stoichiometry questions in terms of the masses of a particular substance, in addition to moles.
    • 7.8: Limiting Reactant and Theoretical Yield
      In all the examples discussed thus far, the reactants were assumed to be present in stoichiometric quantities, with none of the reactants left over at the end of the reaction. Often reactants are present in mole ratios that are not the same as the ratio of the coefficients in the balanced chemical equation. As a result, one or more of them will not be used up completely, but will be left over when the reaction is completed.


    7: Chemical Composition is shared under a CK-12 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Marisa Alviar-Agnew & Henry Agnew.

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