13 Facts About Molecular formula

In chemistry, a chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes other symbols, such as parentheses, dashes, brackets, commas and plus and minus signs.

Sometimes a chemical formula is complicated by being written as a condensed formula, which conveys additional information about the particular ways in which the atoms are chemically bonded together, either in covalent bonds, ionic bonds, or various combinations of these types.

However, even a condensed chemical Molecular formula is necessarily limited in its ability to show complex bonding relationships between atoms, especially atoms that have bonds to four or more different substituents.

Since a chemical Molecular formula must be expressed as a single line of chemical element symbols, it often cannot be as informative as a true structural Molecular formula, which is a graphical representation of the spatial relationship between atoms in chemical compounds.

Chemical Molecular formula identifies each constituent element by its chemical symbol and indicates the proportionate number of atoms of each element.

An example is boron carbide, whose Molecular formula of is a variable non-whole number ratio with n ranging from over 4 to more than 6.

In chemistry, the empirical Molecular formula of a chemical is a simple expression of the relative number of each type of atom or ratio of the elements in the compound.

An empirical Molecular formula makes no reference to isomerism, structure, or absolute number of atoms.

Molecular formula shows the number of elements in a molecule, and determines whether it is a binary compound, ternary compound, quaternary compound, or has even more elements.

In such cases, a structural Molecular formula is useful, as it illustrates which atoms are bonded to which other ones.

The Molecular formula 3CH implies a central carbon atom connected to one hydrogen atom and three methyl groups.

Such a Molecular formula might be written using decimal fractions, as in, or it might include a variable part represented by a letter, as in, where x is normally much less than 1.

Chemical Molecular formula used for a series of compounds that differ from each other by a constant unit is called a general Molecular formula.