Mass fraction (chemistry)

When we talk about things that are made up of different parts, like a pizza with different toppings, we can measure how much of each topping there is compared to the whole pizza. This is kind of like how we can measure how much salt or sugar is in our food. In chemistry, we do a similar thing but with the different parts of a substance.

Mass fraction is a way to measure how much of each part there is in a substance. Let's imagine we have a box of crayons with different colors. We want to know how much of each color there is in the box.

To find out, we can weigh the whole box and write down how much it weighs. Next, we can take out all the red crayons and weigh them. We write down how much all the red crayons weigh. Then, we can do the same thing with the blue, yellow, and green crayons.

Now, we have the weight of the whole box and the weight of each color of crayon. To find the mass fraction of each color, we divide the weight of each color by the weight of the whole box.

For example, if the whole box weighs 100 grams, and there are 20 grams of red crayons, then the mass fraction of red crayons would be 0.2 (20 divided by 100). This means that 20% of the crayons in the box are red.

We use mass fraction in chemistry to measure how much of each part there is in a substance, like how much sodium or chlorine is in salt. We measure the weight of each part and divide it by the weight of the whole substance to find the mass fraction. This helps us understand the composition of different substances and how they behave in different situations.