How many mole of Bi atoms are needed to combine with 1.58 O atoms to make Bi2O3?

1 Answer
Stefan V.
Feb 10, 2015

I assume you meant how many moles of bismuth are needed to react with "1.58 moles" of oxygen, right?

Well, here's the balanced chemical equation for your reaction

4Bi_((s)) + 3O_(2(g)) -> 2Bi_2O_(3(s))

Notice that the balanced chemical equation has 4 moles of bismuth reacting with 3 moles of oxygen to form 2 moles of bismuth (III) oxide.

What that means is that you have a "4:3" mole ratio between bismuth and oxygen. Since you were told that you have "1.58 moles" of oxygen, use the mole ratio to determine how many moles of bismuth you would need for the reaction

"1.58 moles oxygen" * ("4 moles bismuth")/("3 moles oxygen") = "2.11 moles Bi"

If you're interested in how many actual atoms of bismuth you'd need, use Avogadro's number to go from moles to atoms

"2.11 moles Bi" * (6.022 * 10^(23)"atoms of Bi")/("1 mole Bi") = 1.27 * 10^(24)"atoms"

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