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Beryl is a mineral which contains 5.03% Be, 10.04% Al, 31.35% Si, and 53.58% O. What is the chemical formula for beryl?Group of answer choicesBe3Al2(SiO3)6Be4Al(SiO3)8Be3(AlSiO3)2BeAl(SiO3)3

Question

Beryl is a mineral which contains 5.03% Be, 10.04% Al, 31.35% Si, and 53.58% O. What is the chemical formula for beryl?Group of answer choicesBe3Al2(SiO3)6Be4Al(SiO3)8Be3(AlSiO3)2BeAl(SiO3)3

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Solution

To find the chemical formula for Beryl, we need to convert the percentages to moles.

  1. First, we convert the percentages to grams (since the percentages are based on a 100g sample, this means we have 5.03g of Be, 10.04g of Al, 31.35g of Si, and 53.58g of O).

  2. Next, we convert the grams to moles using the atomic masses of the elements (Be = 9.012 g/mol, Al = 26.98 g/mol, Si = 28.09 g/mol, O = 16.00 g/mol).

    Moles of Be = 5.03g / 9.012 g/mol = 0.558 moles Moles of Al = 10.04g / 26.98 g/mol = 0.372 moles Moles of Si = 31.35g / 28.09 g/mol = 1.116 moles Moles of O = 53.58g / 16.00 g/mol = 3.349 moles

  3. Then, we divide each of the mole quantities by the smallest number of moles calculated (which is for Al) to get the mole ratio:

    Be:Al:Si:O = 0.558/0.372 : 0.372/0.372 : 1.116/0.372 : 3.349/0.372 = 1.5 : 1 : 3 : 9

  4. Since we can't have half atoms in a chemical formula, we multiply all the numbers by 2 to get whole numbers:

    Be:Al:Si:O = 3 : 2 : 6 : 18

  5. Finally, we write the chemical formula using these ratios. The 18 oxygen atoms are distributed as 3 per each Si atom (since in the SiO3 group, there are 3 oxygen atoms for each Si atom), so we get:

    Be3Al2(SiO3)6

So, the correct answer is Be3Al2(SiO3)6.

This problem has been solved

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