Calculating percent yield can be confusing for students in Grade 11 chemistry. But don't worry! Let’s simplify it and go over some common mistakes.
First, it’s important to understand what theoretical yield and actual yield mean.
A big mistake students make is mixing these two up, which can lead to wrong answers.
Let’s say you are mixing hydrogen gas with oxygen to make water.
If your balanced equation says that 2 parts of hydrogen gas need 1 part of oxygen to create 2 parts of water, you might expect to make 4 parts of water.
But if you only collect 3 parts of water, then:
To find percent yield, you can use this formula:
One common mistake is forgetting to multiply by 100. Without this step, you’ll just get a decimal, which isn’t very helpful.
For example, if your actual yield is 3 parts and your theoretical yield is 4 parts, the calculation would look like this:
If you forget the multiplication by 100, you’ll end up with just 0.75, which doesn’t tell you much!
Be careful about rounding numbers too soon. If you round too early in your calculations, you could make big mistakes in your final answer for percent yield. Keep the numbers as they are until you finish all your calculations, and then round at the end.
Sometimes students forget that the actual yield might not be completely pure. If your actual yield has some impurities in it, you need to think about that when you calculate percent yield.
By remembering these tips and clearly understanding the difference between theoretical and actual yield, you can get better at calculating percent yield!
Calculating percent yield can be confusing for students in Grade 11 chemistry. But don't worry! Let’s simplify it and go over some common mistakes.
First, it’s important to understand what theoretical yield and actual yield mean.
A big mistake students make is mixing these two up, which can lead to wrong answers.
Let’s say you are mixing hydrogen gas with oxygen to make water.
If your balanced equation says that 2 parts of hydrogen gas need 1 part of oxygen to create 2 parts of water, you might expect to make 4 parts of water.
But if you only collect 3 parts of water, then:
To find percent yield, you can use this formula:
One common mistake is forgetting to multiply by 100. Without this step, you’ll just get a decimal, which isn’t very helpful.
For example, if your actual yield is 3 parts and your theoretical yield is 4 parts, the calculation would look like this:
If you forget the multiplication by 100, you’ll end up with just 0.75, which doesn’t tell you much!
Be careful about rounding numbers too soon. If you round too early in your calculations, you could make big mistakes in your final answer for percent yield. Keep the numbers as they are until you finish all your calculations, and then round at the end.
Sometimes students forget that the actual yield might not be completely pure. If your actual yield has some impurities in it, you need to think about that when you calculate percent yield.
By remembering these tips and clearly understanding the difference between theoretical and actual yield, you can get better at calculating percent yield!