Average Atomic Mass
Average Atomic Mass – the weighted average of the masses of the isotopes of an element Every element is composed of several naturally occurring isotopes of that element-each with its own atomic mass A weighted average of the percentage of each isotope that exists versus the atomic mass of each isotope is used to calculate the atomic mass that appears on the periodic table. Step 1) Change each percent abundance into a decimal weight. Step 2) Multiply each atom’s mass by its decimal weight to get the contribution for each isotope. Step 3) Add all the contributions together to get the average atomic mass. Has units of amu, atomic mass unit.
Example 1: The element copper occurs naturally as 69.17% of copper-63 with a mass of amu and 30.83% of copper-65 with a mass of amu. What is the average atomic mass of copper? 100% * Average Atomic Mass = Σ [(isotope mass) * (percent abundance of isotope)]
Example 2: The atomic weight of gallium is amu. The masses of the naturally occurring isotopes are amu and amu for 69 Ga and 71 Ga respectively. Calculate the % abundance of each isotope.