26 g of zinc combines with 12.8 g of sulfur. what is the empirical formula of zinc sulfide?
a. zn2s2
b. zns2
c. zns
d. zn2s

2fe + 3h2so4 -> fe2(so4)3 + 3h2

it is necessary to balance equations in order to get the proper amount of reactants as well as products in order not to make a miscalculation.

you cannot change the subscripts as that would change the substance itself. for instance, diatomic elements such as h2 only have the subscript two when a gas. another example would be so4, if you were to change the subscript, the element would no longer be sulfate.

we change the coefficients instead as that only changes the number of molecules rather than the substance itself.

hope this !

number of molecules / avogadro's number * molecule molecular = mass

explanation:

we define a gram-molecular weight as the mass of one mole of any element or compound. a mole contains avogadro's number of units (molecules) –  

6.022

x

10

23

. so, dividing the number of molecules by avogadro's number gives us the number of moles. multiplying that by the molecular weight gives us the mass. from the periodic table we find the gram-molecular weight of u to be238 and of f to be19. so,  

u

f

6

will have a gram-molecular weight of 352g.