What is the molarity of a solution prepared by dissolving 1.56 g of gaseous HCl (molar mass = 36.5 g) into enough water to make 26.8 mL of solution?

1 Answer
Nov 11, 2015

"1.59 M"

Explanation:

The first thing to check here is how much hydrogen chloride, "HCl", can you dissolve in water at room temperature. This will help you make sure that all the mass of hydrogen chloride will actually dissolve.

At room temperature, hydrogen chloride has a solubility of about "720 g/L", which means that your "26.8-mL" sample will hold as much as

26.8color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mL"))) * "720 g HCl"/(1000color(red)(cancel(color(black)("mL")))) = "19.3 g HCl"

Now that you know that all the hydrogen achloride will actually dissolve, you can use its molar mass to determine how many moles you have in the "1.56-g" sample

1.56color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"))) * "1 mole HCl"/(36.5color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g")))) = "0.04274 moles HCl"

Now, molarity is defined as moles of solution, which in your case is hydrogen chloride, divided by liters of solution.

color(blue)("molarity" = "moles of solute"/"liters of solution")

In your case, the molarity of the resulting solution will be

c = "0.04274 moles"/(26.8 * 10^(-3)"L") = "1.5948 M"

Rounded to three sig figs, the answer will be

c = color(green)("1.59 M")