What is percent composition?
The percent composition for a compound generally determines the elementary composition of the compound in the form of grams for each element and divided by the total number of grams present. The percent composition or mass percent of each element is usually equal to the mass of a particular element that is further divided by the total mass present and multiplied by 100 percent.
It is expressed in mass and useful in chemistry when you have to know percentage of total weight of the compound made up of a particular element. So, how to calculate the percentage composition in Chemistry. Well, there is a well-defined formula for the same purpose and you just have to put the values to calculate the final outcome. The formula is taken even more important for chemical analysis process and it can be given as below –
Percent Composition Formula
Where, %Ce is the percent composition of the element that you are interested in calculating. gE is the weight of a particular element in terms of grams and gT is the total weight of elements present in the compound. And finally, the ration is multiplied by 100 to get the percentage form of the composition.
The formula is frequently used to measure the concentration of an element for a given mixture. It can be used for plenty of real-life applications too. Chemists are using percentage composition formula to find the empirical formula of the compound that further helps in calculating the actual molecular formula too and an exact number of atoms within a compound.