chemistry question

[Student247]

Anyone,


How would you determine the atomic weight of a sample of an unknown pure element?

This has been puzzling me, because I know its not that difficult yet I can't seem to remember how to do it.

Any help would be highly appreciated. Please be specific.

Student247

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[San_Juan_Sun]

Posted this on the pre-med board, but I'll put it here too.

Just thinking out loud here, but if you can figure out what period and family the element is in, you'll know the number of electrons. If you know the number of electrons, you'll know the number of protons the element has (assuming this is a neutral species). If you can figure out the number of neutrons (I don't know how to do this) you can add up the masses of all the sub-atomic particles for the atomic mass of the element. Hope this helps.