What is the maximum mass of pure gold that could be extracted from 150.g of calaverite, a gold ore with the chemical formula AuTe2

Question

What is the maximum mass of pure gold that could be extracted from 150.g of calaverite, a gold ore with the chemical formula AuTe2

Be sure your answer has a unit symbol, if necessary, and is rounded to the correct number of significant digits.

Answer 1

Hey Yasmine,

Calaverite is made up of both Au and Te. First we have to tackle this problem by looking at the percent composition of each of the elements.

Calaverite is 43.56% Au and 56.44% Te (done by taking the mass of each element in calaverite individually and dividing by the molar mass of calaverite)

We then multiply the percentage composition of Au by the mass of the sample of calaverite given to us, which is 150. grams, which gives us (rounding to 3 significant figures because of the 150. grams) 65.3 grams of Au as a maximum yield from the 150. g sample of calaverite.

Hope this helped!