OHHH ok. i don't htink the part you crossed out was wrong. essentials wrote something similar:
Worked example 2.4b
The content of saccharine (C7H7NO3S) in diet sweetener tablets can be determined by oxidising
the sulfur to sulfate and precipitating it as barium sulfate (BaSO4). A 0.607 g sample yields
0.3196 g barium sulfate. What was the percentage of saccharine in the sample?
Solution
n(BaSO4) =
m(BaSO4)
M(BaSO4)
=
0.3196 g
233.4 g mol−1 = 0.001 369 mol
1 mole of C7H7NO3S yields 1 mole of BaSO4 (as the number of sulfur atoms in each compound
must be the same).
So, the ratio
n(C7H7NO3S)
n(BaSO4)
=
1/1
n(C7H7NO3S) = n(BaSO4) = 0.001 369 mol
m(C7H7NO3S) = n(C7H7NO3S) × M(C7H7NO3S)
= 0.001 369 mol × 185.2 g mol−1 = 0.2535 g
So, the 0.607g sample contains 0.2535 g of C7H7NO3S. Therefore,
% C7H7NO3S =
0.2535 g × 100
0.607 g
= 41.76%
The percentage of saccharine in the tablets is 41.8% (to three signifi cant fi gures).
and then it says:
Notice that no equation has been written for this
reaction. Apart from the fact that it would not be
easy to write an equation using the information
supplied, all we really need to know is the mole
ratio between C7H7NO3S and BaSO4.
i don't understand the bolded part though
Yeh what I said wasn't wrong, it just won't work for every situation. What the bolded part is trying to say is that we know that the number of sulfur atoms is staying the same, so the amount of sulfur atoms in the first compound must equal the amount of sulfur atoms in the second compound. So 1 mol of the first compound contains 1 mol of sulfur atoms (i.e. the subscript is 1) and 1 mol of the second compound contains 1 mol of sulfur (i.e. the subscript is 1), then 1 mol of the first compound will become 1 mol of the second compound. i.e. a 1:1 ratio.
Lets take another example where it isn't a 1:1 ratio.
Say we have HCl and Zn. Which will form ZnCl
2. In 1 mol of HCl there is 1 mol of Chlorine (the subscript is 1), in 1 mol of ZnCl
2 there is 2 mols of Chlorine (the subscript is 2 (for Cl that is)). i.e. when The number of chlorine atoms must stay the same (so the number of mol of chlorine atoms is the same), so 2 mols of HCl will be required to provide 2 mols of Chlorine and so 2 mols of HCl will be needed to make 1 mol of ZnCl
2. i.e. that ratio is 2:1. *you can check this by writing out the equation and balancing it).
Now to answer you're question regarding the O
4 and why it isn't 1:4 ratio. If we write out the full equation (this may not always be possible at vce level) then we can see that like the example above there is other products bering formed like CO and CO
2, that are taking the other Oxygen atoms.
So basically when you do this, if you can't write the equation then try to thinking intuitvely and find the ratio. Sorry about all this above, I kinda haven't explained it well. Good Luck
