What would you do if you needed to know how much table salt you can produce with the handy eight grams of sodium you have? Well, today will we find out. First of all, we need to find some chlorine gas. Be careful, it may be is poisonous.
Now that we have all of our materials, we are set to make some salt. We should now determine the balanced chemical equation for salt, and it is:
2Na (s) + Cl2 (g) --> 2NaCl
We always were taught that the coefficients are there to abide by Datlon’s atomic theory, that atoms cannot be created nor destroyed. While this is true, a balanced chemical formula contains a more powerful, hidden meaning. Do you want to know? We’ll tell you anyhow, even if you aren’t interested. The coefficients represent the number of moles. For example, if you react two moles of sodium with one mole of chlorine gas you will receive two moles of salt.
So back to our original problem: How much NaCl can be produced with 8.0 grams of sodium? Firstly, we will convert the sodium into moles.
8.0 g Na (1 mol Na/ 23.0g Na)
= 0.35 mol Na
Now we will use the mole to mole conversions to do the next step. Thus far we know that for
2 moles of Na used, 2 moles of NaCl are produced. So we can set up another equation:
0.35 mol Na (2 mol NaCl / 2 mol Na)
= 0.35 mol NaCl
= 20 grams NaCl
There you have it! By using eight grams of sodium and having the chlorine provided, you have successfully made twenty grams of salt. The conversion factor that was used above can be used. However, we learned a quicker method in class. The conversion is:
what you need
what you have
If you don’t believe us, try it out yourself. Here is a video for more information:
Posted by Andrew.
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