Concentration Problem Please Help

Welcome to our free

Chemistry Homework Help

forum.

Please read the forums rules before posting.

Find out how you can Help My Chemistry Tutor

[chem2000]

Here is the problem:


An analytical chemist determines that an estuarine water sample contains 1.5g/liter of sulfate ion (SO4^2-).

What is the concentration in terms of: Grams per liter of sulfur?


Thanks

[mr_cochran]

If you know the percent sulfur in sulfate ...

[chem2000]

I don't know what the percentage of sulfur is in sulfate.
The answer is supposed to be .5.
 I don't what to do to get that answer?

[mr_cochran]

Do you know how to determine the mass of sulfate ion. then...

      Mass sulfur   x 100 =    % sulfur
     Mass sulfate

Then

     1.5 g sulfate x % =   ? g Sulfur
        1 Liter         100     1 Liter

If your beginning to learn conversions, or dimensional analysis, the setup might look like this:

     1.5 g sulfate  x  g sulfur   =  ? g sulfur
          1 Liter        g sulfate       1 Liter

Hope this helps with your other problems