Sciencemadness Discussion Board

how to calculate an elements % of a compound

peterpiper - 29-10-2015 at 20:39

I read in a book by Jim marrs that Prozac is 95% flourine and therefore poisons people who take it. I looked up Prozac. It is C12H18F3NO. Total atomic weight of 249.276. Since flourine has a weight of 18.998 that means Prozac is 22.86% flourine. I am not a chemist but this is what I think. If you take a compounds formula, multiply the number of atoms for each element times that element's atomic weight and sum all your weights of each element, you will get the weight of one mole of the compound. Then divide the weight of the element (flourine =3x18.998=56.994) by the weight of a mole of the compound to arrive at the percent that element in the compound. For flourine I got 22.86% of Prozac. Did I do this correctly?
Thanks so much for your help, peterpiper

Detonationology - 29-10-2015 at 22:12

Fluoxetine has a the chemical formula C17H18F3NO, not C12, and a molar mass of 309.33g, not 249.276. The % fluorine in C17H18F3NO is 57/309.33 = .1842*100 = 18.42% fluorine

SunriseSunset - 2-11-2015 at 23:31

95% bullshit lol. Shows how just a little bit of education goes a long way

Random photos on facebook be like, "All Prozac is, is fluorine".

Oh, so.. All my stomach acid is, is chlorine?

I guess xmedication hydrochloride must be only be a bunch of hydrochloric acid too. Yup. :Þ

aga - 3-11-2015 at 04:35

@peterpiper

People who never get anything wrong are those people who do nothing at all.

Good on yer for trying, and your process is fine.

The key problem with the whole idea is that a compound containing Fluorine will magically release pure Fluorine somehow. It simply doesn't work like that.

For example, vitamin B12 is cyanocobalamin, containing cynanide.
Eating it doesn't mean the Cynanide poisons you.

Praxichys - 3-11-2015 at 05:54

Eugh, I found that article. This guy is like the male Food Babe.

He rants about the insane markup on prescription drugs, and asks why generic drugs are so cheap once the patent expires on the brand-name ones. What I don't think he realizes is the years of research, all the paid trials for FDA approval, the time and effort put in by everyone from the drug discovery team to the chemists that first synthesize it, the approval, and then figuring out how to make it in a huge scale... THAT's what you're paying for!

Of course, once those patents expire, all a generic drug company needs to do is buy the raw materials and follow the recipe, which is obviously much cheaper. There is no conspiracy!

aga - 3-11-2015 at 12:18

No commodity can ever be Free for anyone, ever.

Whatever it is, the person(s) making/doing it also need to eat.

If they're farming to make stuff to eat, they will not be making/doing whatever it is that you want for free.