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Chemical composition

physical science Maturity 9-11 Next article →

Everything in our world is made of tiny parts. Chemical composition tells us about these parts. It shows the identity of the elements. It also shows how they are arranged. It tells us the ratio of each part. A ratio shows how much of one thing we have. This helps us understand what a substance is.

Scientists use special ways to show these parts. A chemical formula is one way to do this. It shows the relative amounts of elements in a compound. Look at water as an example. Its formula is H2O. This means one molecule has two hydrogen atoms. It also has one atom of oxygen. This is a 2:1 ratio.

There are different kinds of formulas to use. You might see an empirical formula. You might also see a molecular formula. These are different ways to show composition. Scientists also use nomenclature. This is a system of naming things. These names show which elements are present. They also show how the elements are arranged.

Some things are not just one pure substance. They are called mixtures. A mixture is made of different substances. We call these parts components. The composition of a mixture is the distribution of these components. We can measure the concentration of each part. We can use mass fraction or volume fraction. We can also use molar fraction or molality.

We can even draw pictures of these mixtures. Scientists use graphs to show the parts. These are called ternary plots. They also use quaternary plots. These plots show how the components are spread out. It is a way to see the whole mixture. This helps us understand how things work together.

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