When dealing with gases, calculating the number of moles is a crucial first step for using the Ideal Gas Law. Moles measure the amount of substance present. To find the moles of a gas, you start with the mass of the gas and the molar mass.
The molar mass is a fixed property of each element or compound, representing the weight of one mole of that substance. For neon, the molar mass is 20.18 \( \text{g/mol} \).
The formula to calculate the moles is:
- \[ n = \frac{\text{mass}}{\text{molar mass}} \]
Plug in the values for mass and molar mass. For a given mass of 5.00 grams of neon:
- \[ n = \frac{5.00 \text{ g}}{20.18 \text{ g/mol}} = 0.2477 \text{ mol} \]
This tells us that the sample contains approximately 0.2477 moles of neon.
Understanding this step is important because it allows us to use the Ideal Gas Law to find other unknowns like temperature or pressure.