Question

If one mole of carbon atom weighs 12 g, what is the mass in grams of 1 atom of carbon?

Answer 1

Hint – A mole of carbon contains $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ atoms, so mass of $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ atoms of carbon are 12 g. So, find the mass of 1 atom of carbon using the given information.

Complete answer:
We have given that one mole of carbon atom weighs 12 g.
A mole is defined as exactly equal to $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ atoms.
So, we know that a mole of carbon contains $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ atoms.
Therefore, we can write the mass of $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ atoms = 12 g.
Using the unitary method to find the mass of 1 atom of carbon in grams. So, we can write as below-
So, now mass of 1 atom of carbon will be $= \dfrac{{12}}{{6.022 \times {{10}^{23}}}} = 1.993 \times {10^{ - 23}}g$

Hence, the mass in grams of 1 atom of carbon is $1.993 \times {10^{ - 23}}g$ .
If we have to find the mass of 2 atoms or n number of carbon atoms, the same way we can proceed to find the mass in grams of the carbon atoms.

Note – While solving the question, the first thing we should know is about mole. A mole is defined exactly equal to $6.022 \times {10^{23}}$ of some chemical unit, whether it be atoms, molecules, ions, or others. So, as mentioned in the solution, the mass of 1 mole is given, so we can easily find the mass of 1 atom of carbon.