Question

Vanadium occurs in nature as a mixture of two isotopes V-50 , which has atomic mass of 49.9472u and V-51 w/c has atomic mass 50.944u the atomic weight of vanadium is 50.9415. What is the percent abundance of each of the two isotopes?

Answer 1

V-50, V-51
Mass of each isotope 49.9472, 50.944
all the isotopic abundances for a particular isotopes has to add up to 100
suppose that the isotopic abundance of V-50 is x, the the V-51 has a isotopic abundance of V-51 is 1-x and i have written 1 as 100% is in decimal form and is divided by 100.
Average atomic mass=50.9415
A.Atomic mass is calculated byt multiplying each isotopic mass by its percentage abundance written as a decimal
50.9415=(49.9472*x)+50.944(1-x)

Answer 2

50.9415=49.9472x+50.944-50.944x
-0.9968x=-0.0025
x=0.9993
x is in decimal form convert into percentage by multiplying by 100.99.93% is the % abundance of isotope V-50 and 0.07 is the % of V-51