Starting with 5.00 g barium chloride n hydrate yields 4.26 g of anhydrous barium chloride after heating. Determine the integer n.

BaCl₂·(H₂O)₂

Explanation:

The reaction that takes place is:

The information given by the problem tells us that 5.00 g of reactant were consumed. Of those 5.00 g, 4.26 g were converted into BaCl₂, this means that the other 0.74 g were converted into water.

We convert 0.74 g of water into moles, using its molar mass:

Then we convert 4.26 g of BaCl₂ into moles:

We can write these results as (BaCl₂)₀.₀₂·(H₂O)₀.₀₄. We multiply those coefficients by 50 in order to make them integers, and we're left with: