How Many Moles of Hydrogen Are in Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether?

How many moles of hydrogen are in a sample of methyl tert-butyl ether?

A chemical engineer has determined by measurements that there are .020 moles of carbon in a sample of methyl tert-butyl ether. How many moles of hydrogen are in the sample?

Answer:

There are 0.060 moles of hydrogen in the sample.

To determine the number of moles of hydrogen in a given number of moles of methyl tert-butyl ether, we establish the ratio of hydrogen to carbon in the molecule, which is 3:1. Thus, for 0.020 moles of carbon, there would be 0.060 moles of hydrogen.

To solve this, we first need to understand the number of hydrogen atoms in a molecule of methyl tert-butyl ether. Given the chemical formula CH3OC(CH3)3, count up the total number of Hydrogen and Carbon atoms. There's one Carbon in the CH3, and three in the (CH3)3 for a total of 4 Carbon atoms. Same with Hydrogen, there are 3 Hydrogens in CH3 and 9 in (CH3)3 for a total of 12 Hydrogen atoms. This gives us a ratio of 12 Hydrogen atoms to 4 Carbon atoms, or, reduced, 3 Hydrogen atoms to 1 Carbon atom.

In this case, with 0.020 moles of Carbon, we can determine that there are 0.060 moles of Hydrogen. As there are three times more Hydrogen moles in the compound than Carbon, we simply multiply the number of Carbon moles by 3 to get 0.060 moles of Hydrogen.