If you are on a field trip to the ocean and you recovered 750 grams of ocean salts from a sample of ocean water, based on known percentages of dissolved solids in ocean water, what would be the mass of sodium in the sample?

a.

24.51 g

b.

0.041 g

c.

229.5 g

d.

750 g

The percentage of dissolved salt in saltwater is 3.5%.  We are given the amount seawater sample. We would just multiply the two values together.

750 g (0.035) = 26.25 g NaCl

26.25 g NaCl ( 1 mol / 59.44 g ) ( 1 mol Na / 1 mol NaCl ) ( 22.99 g / 1 mol ) = 10.15 g Na

Hope this answers the question. Have a nice day.