Question

State: Empirical formula

Answer 1

Hint: The answer to this question includes the fact that empirical formula is mainly given by the definition which is based on the letters denoted for each atom in a molecule.

Complete step by step answer:
In the concepts of chemistry, we have come across the basic notation given for each molecule to simplify the names of the compound which is basically called as empirical formula.
- Empirical formula thus, is defined as “The simplest positive integer ratio of the atoms which is present in the compound”.
- Empirical formula does not mention the arrangement of atoms in a molecule or also the total number of each atom present in a given molecule.
- Empirical formula is assigned to a common group to which a molecule belongs.
- If we consider an example glucose, ribose, acetic acid and formaldehyde, all these have different molecular formula but the same empirical formula given by $C{{H}_{2}}O$ .
- Here in the above example, the actual molecular formula for formaldehyde is $C{{H}_{2}}O$ but for acetic acid it will be double the number of atoms and for ribose, it has five times the number of atoms of formaldehyde where as for glucose, it has six times the number of atoms of formaldehyde.

Thus, the correct answer to this question is “Empirical formula is a formula which gives the proportions of elements present in a compound but not the actual number of atoms or their arrangement”.

Note: Note that empirical formula and molecular formula are two different definitions in which both are written in the same format in terms of formula except that molecular formula includes the number of each type of atom present and not to be confused.