How many moles of oxygen are in 1 mole of #Ca(NO_3)_2#?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Dec 23, 2015

The only thing this is really asking you to do is to understand subscripts and parentheses.

Examining #("NO"_3)_2# only, we see that the subscript #3# indicates #\mathbf(3)# #\mathbf("mol")#s of oxygen atoms within each #"mol"# of #"NO"_3^(-)# (nitrate) polyatomic ions.

The subscript #2# indicates #\mathbf(2)# #\mathbf("mol")#s of #"NO"_3^(-)# polyatomic ions. As a result, we double the number of oxygens as well as the number of nitrogens (but we only care about the oxygens here) that we already have.

Thus, #("O"xx3)xx2 = \mathbf6# moles of oxygen atoms.

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