Question

What is the formula mass for sulfuric acid?

Answer 1

Hint: Molecular mass or formula mass or molar mass is equal to the total sum of the masses of the elements or atoms present in the molecule.
Formula of Sulfuric acid is ${{H}_{2}}S{{O}_{4}}$

Complete step-by-step answer:
Steps to be followed to find the molecular mass of a compound:
The formula of the molecule or compound should be identified first.
Now, using that formula the total number of atoms present in each of the elements of the molecule or compound should be determined.
After that, the atomic weight of each element with the number of atoms of that particular element should be multiplied.
The same steps should be done for all the elements in the compound or molecule.
Now all the values which are obtained using the above steps should be added up.
As a last step add the unit as grams/mole and now we have the molecular mass of a substance.

Here we have Sulfuric acid and the formula for sulfuric acid is: ${{H}_{2}}S{{O}_{4}}$
Determining the atomic masses of each atom:
Atomic Mass of Hydrogen (H) is: $1.008$
Atomic Mass of Sulfur (S) is: $32.06$
Atomic Mass of Oxygen (O) is: $16$

Determining the number of atoms:
Number of atoms of Hydrogen (H) : $2$
Number of atoms of Sulfur (S) : $1$
Number of atoms of Oxygen (S) : $4$

Therefore, the molecular mass of ${{H}_{2}}S{{O}_{4}}$is:
=$2 \times H+1 \times S+4 \times O$
=$2 \times 1.008+1 \times 32.06+4 \times 16$
=$98.08$ gram/mole

So from the calculation we can say that the molar mass or formula mass or molecular mass of the
Sulfuric acid i.e. ${{H}_{2}}S{{O}_{4}}$is $98.08$gram/mole.

Note: It is easy to calculate the molecular mass for small molecules but it creates an issue when we try to calculate for polymers or macromolecules as they are very large in size. So, we have to keep this in mind. Here we have to always remember that how many atoms does an element have to be multiplied by its mass. In this respective problem we have multiplied 2 and 1.008 as Hydrogen has 2 atoms in this given chemical formula and its mass is 1.008 and respectively we have to follow with remaining elements.