How many grams of nitric acid are there in 3 mol nitric acid?

Answer 1

It's always useful to remember our conversion units when looking at problems like this.

atoms <-> moles <-> grams

First, a mol (mole) is a measurement of the number of atoms present in a substance. (If beaker A contains 1 mol of water and beaker B contains 1 mol of mercury, both beakers will contain the same number of atoms). 1 mole = 6.02x 10^23 atoms.

Second, we can look at the molecular weight- the units for this are grams per mole (g/mol)- or, how much does one mole of our substance weigh (in grams)?

We can figure this out by adding up all of the atomic masses of the molecules that make up a compound (or googling the molecular or atomic weight of the compound).

Google says: the MW of nitric acid is 63.01 g/mol.

So, we know that ONE mole of nitric acid weighs 63.01 grams. With that knowledge, how many grams would three moles of nitric acid weigh?

Answer 2

Nitric acid is HNO₃

3 mol HNO₃

Molar Mass of HNO₃ is equal to 63.01 g/mol

3 mol*63.01 g/mol=189.03 g of HNO₃