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The Solid State

Question
CBSEENCH12005458

How can you determine the atomic mass of an unknown metal if you know its density and the dimension of its unit cell? Explain.

Solution

Solution:

The atomic mass of an unknown metal can be determined by knowing its density and the dimension of unit cell.

 
Let ‘a’ be the edge length of a cubic unit cell and it contains ‘Z’ atoms of a substance of atomic mass ‘M’.

From the above expression for density, d we can calculate the atomic mass, M of metal as other parameters are known.