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Grade 12Modern Physics

how to calculate the relative abundance of chlorine isotope?????

Profile image of NETHAVATH ARCHANA
8 Years agoGrade 12
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1 Answer

Profile image of Arun
8 Years ago

chlorine has two isotopes: Cl-35 and Cl-37. Their relative abundance is 75.78% and 24.22%, respectively. To calculate the average atomic mass of chlorine, we take the weighted average of the isotope mass and its abundance:

(35 x 0.7578) + (37 x 0.2422) = 35.48 amu

The reported value is 35.453. The discrepancy is due to my using whole numbers for the isotope mass, introducing a slight error.