Chapter 3 The Mole Concept, Chemical Formula and Equation

3.3 Chemical Formula

Empirical formula

• The empirical formula is the chemical formula that shows the simplest ratio of the number of atoms of
each element in a compound.

Molecular formula

• The molecular formula, on the other hand, is the chemical formula that shows the actual number of
atoms of each element found in a molecule of a compound.
Determination of an Empirical Formula
 • The heating of metals in air is suitable to be used to determine the empirical formula of reactive metal
oxides such as magnesium oxide, zinc oxide and aluminium oxide. It is because reactive metals react
easily with oxygen in air. This method is not suitable for less reactive metals.

• The heating of metal oxides in the flow of hydrogen gas is only suitable to determine the empirical
formula of less reactive metals such as copper(II) oxide, tin (II) oxide and lead(II) oxide. This is
because hydrogen gas can displace metal from metal oxide.

Determination of a Molecular Formula

Chemical Formulae of Ionic Compounds

• Ionic compounds are made up of cations (positively-charged ions) and anions (negatively-charged
ions).

ferum

argentum
Naming of Chemical Compounds

• For ionic compounds, the name of the cation is written first followed by the name of the anion.

• Some metals form more than one type of ions.

• When naming simple molecular compounds, the more electropositive element is named first
• followed by the name of the more electronegative element. The name of the first element remains
• the same while the second element ends with ‘ide’. Greek prefixes are used to represent the number
• of atoms of each element in simple molecular compounds.
• CCl4 – carbon tetrachloride