What do I do if I get 0 as an end result with an empirical formula?

Question

I'm trying to find the empirical formula and I divided the amount by the mass and then the mass by the total mass, but I got 0. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Answer 1

What do I do if I get 0 as an end result with an empirical formula?

I'm trying to find the empirical formula and I divided the amount by the mass and then the mass by the total mass, but I got 0. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Hit "Reset" and start again.

If I understand what the original problem asked, you want to find an empirical formula given element weights found from a chemical analysis, Here's how.

For a compound containing elements x, y, and z, and elemental weights g(x), g(y), and g(z):

1. Calculate the wt fraction of each element, f(x) = g(x) / total sample wt. = g(x) / sum(xyz)
2. Divide each each fraction by the gram atomic wt (GAW) of the element to get the relative number of moles

M_rel(x) = f(x) / GAW(x)

1. Divide each M_rel by the smallest value to get the Relative Ratio of atoms to each other (note that one of the elements will be RR=1)

RR(x) = M_rel(x) / M_rel(smallest)

The results (hopefully all close to integers) will be the subscripts for the elemental formula A_xB_yC_z