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Achemical composition specifies the identity, arrangement, and ratio of thechemical elements making up acompound by way ofchemical and atomic bonds.
Chemical formulas can be used to describe the relative amounts of elements present in a compound. For example, the chemical formula forwater is H2O: this means that eachmolecule of water is constituted by 2atoms ofhydrogen (H) and 1 atom ofoxygen (O). The chemical composition of water may be interpreted as a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen atoms to oxygen atoms. Different types ofchemical formulas are used to convey composition information, such as anempirical ormolecular formula.
Nomenclature can be used to express not only the elements present in a compound but their arrangement within themolecules of the compound. In this way, compounds will have unique names which can describe their elemental composition.[1]
The chemical composition of amixture can be defined as the distribution of the individual substances that constitute the mixture, called "components". In other words, it is equivalent to quantifying theconcentration of each component.[2] Because there are different ways to define the concentration of a component, there are also different ways to define the composition of a mixture. It may be expressed asmolar fraction,volume fraction,mass fraction,molality,molarity ornormality ormixing ratio.
Chemical composition of a mixture can be represented graphically in plots liketernary plot and quaternary plot.
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