The artificial sweetener NutraSweet is a chemical called aspartame (C14H18N2O5).
(a) What is its molecular mass (in atomic mass units)?
u
(b) What is the mass (in kg) of an aspartame molecule?
kg
I will be happy to critique your work.
To find the molecular mass of aspartame (C14H18N2O5), we need to calculate the sum of the atomic masses of all the atoms in the chemical formula.
(a) Molecular mass of aspartame (in atomic mass units):
To determine the atomic mass of each element, we can refer to the periodic table.
The atomic masses are as follows:
C (Carbon) = 12.01 u
H (Hydrogen) = 1.01 u
N (Nitrogen) = 14.01 u
O (Oxygen) = 16.00 u
Now, we can multiply the number of atoms in the formula by their respective atomic masses and sum them up.
C14H18N2O5:
(14 × 12.01 u) + (18 × 1.01 u) + (2 × 14.01 u) + (5 × 16.00 u)
= 168.14 u + 18.18 u + 28.02 u + 80.00 u
= 294.34 u
Therefore, the molecular mass of aspartame is 294.34 atomic mass units.
(b) Mass of an aspartame molecule (in kg):
To convert the atomic mass unit (u) to kilograms (kg), we can use the conversion factor:
1 atomic mass unit (u) = 1.66 × 10^-27 kg
To find the mass in kilograms, we multiply the molecular mass (in atomic mass units) by the conversion factor:
294.34 u × (1.66 × 10^-27 kg/u) = 4.88 × 10^-25 kg
Therefore, the mass of an aspartame molecule is approximately 4.88 × 10^-25 kg.