How does oxygen has mass ?

when has magnesium is burnt how does it shows that oxygen has mass?

1 Answer
Meave60
May 16, 2018

It shows that oxygen has mass because the mass of the product is greater than the mass of magnesium that you started with.

Explanation:

Balanced equation

#"2Mg(s) + O"_2("g")"stackrel(Delta)rarr##"2MgO(s)"#

The product, magnesium oxide, contains the magnesium you started with chemically combined with oxygen gas from the air in your classroom. If you subtract the amount of magnesium that you started with from the mass of the magnesium oxide you obtained, you will get the mass of oxygen that reacted.

One thing to keep in mind is that you may also get some magnesium nitride because of nitrogen gas in the air, so your product may not have the mass you expect if just oxygen gas reacted with the magnesium.

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