You are given a sample of limestone, which is mostly CaCO3, to determine the mass percentage of Ca in the rock. You dissolve the limestone in hydrochloric acid, which gives a solution of calcium chloride. Then you precipitate the calcium ion in solution by adding sodium oxalate, Na2C2O4. The precipitate is calcium oxalate, CaC2O4. You find that a sample of limestone weighing 128.3 mg gives 140.2 mg of CaC2O4. What is the mass percentage of calcium in the limestone

34.15% is the mass percentage of calcium in the limestone.

Explanation:

Mass of precipitate that is calcium oxalate = 140.2 mg = 0.1402 g

1 mg = 0.001 g

Moles of calcium oxalate =

1 mole of calcium oxalate have 1 mole of calcium atom.

Then 0.001095 moles of calcium oxalate will have 0.001095 moles of calcium atom.

Mass of 0.001095 moles of calcium :

0.001095 mol × 40 g/mol = 0.04381 g

Mass of sample of limestone = 128.3 mg = 0.1283 g

Percentage of calcium in limestone:

34.15% is the mass percentage of calcium in the limestone.

most historians agree that gabriel mouton, the vicar of st. paul’s church in lyons, france, is the “founding father” of the metric system. he proposed a decimal system of measurement in 1670. mouton based it on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the earth (now called a nautical mile, 1852 meters). he also proposed the swing-length of a pendulum with a frequency of one beat per second as the unit of length (about 25 cm). a pendulum beating with this length would have been fairly easy to produce, thus facilitating the widespread distribution of uniform standards. over the years, his work was revised, improved, and extended by a number of french scientists.

the political sponsor of weights and measures reform in the french revolutionary national assembly was the bishop of autun, better known as talleyrand. under his auspices, the french academy appointed several committees to carry out the work of developing a usable system of weights and measures for france. one of the committees recommended a decimalized measurement system based upon a length equal to one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant of the earth’s meridian (i.e., one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the north pole).