Combustion analysis calculator — empirical formula from CO2 and H2O, free

Run — free

Runs in your browser. Free, unlimited — your data never leaves this page.

When the sample burns completely in excess oxygen, every carbon atom leaves as carbon dioxide and every hydrogen atom leaves as water. Weighing those two products gives moles of carbon equal to moles of CO2 and moles of hydrogen equal to twice the moles of H2O. Dividing both mole counts by the smaller value and scaling to the nearest whole-number pair recovers the simplest ratio CxHy that textbooks call the empirical formula. Students meet this workflow after percent composition, before molecular-formula scaling by molar mass, and again whenever an organic unknown is identified from a combustion train. This calculator accepts the CO2 and H2O masses in grams, applies fixed conventional atomic weights, rejects negative or non-positive product masses with a clear validation error, and returns the empirical formula string together with intermediate moles, element masses, ratio diagnostics, and the defining method label. The free browser tool and the paid API share one pure isomorphic function, so classroom demos and automated grading pipelines never diverge on the same numbers.

How to use it

Enter your values in the form above. The tool checks them before calculating and shows the result on the same page.

Check your inputs

Use the labels and units shown next to each field. If something is missing or outside the allowed range, the page points to the field to fix.

Use it again or automate it

Use the browser tool for individual checks and the API when you need the same capability in an automated workflow.

What you can do with it

Get an answer now

Enter one set of values and see the result without building a spreadsheet or script.

Compare scenarios

Change one value at a time and rerun the calculation to understand what affects the result.

Automate repeated work

Use the API when the same calculation needs to run inside your product or workflow.

FAQ

How do I use this capability?

Complete the fields above and run it on this page. The form highlights anything that needs attention.

For developers — API access

Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.

API endpoint

POSThttps://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis

Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.

Call it from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"co2_mass":3.52,"h2o_mass":1.44}'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "co2_mass": 3.52,
    "h2o_mass": 1.44
  })
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();

import os, requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
    json={
    "co2_mass": 3.52,
    "h2o_mass": 1.44
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]

<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis", false, stream_context_create([
  "http" => [
    "method"  => "POST",
    "header"  => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
    "content" => '{"co2_mass":3.52,"h2o_mass":1.44}',
  ],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);

body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"co2_mass":3.52,"h2o_mass":1.44}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/chem/combustion-analysis", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

Example request

{
  "co2_mass": 3.52,
  "h2o_mass": 1.44
}

Example response

{
  "task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "type": "chem.combustion_analysis",
  "status": "queued",
  "_links": {
    "result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
  }
}

The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.

Pricing

Per request$0.002

Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.

Errors

HTTP	Code	Meaning
`401`	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid API key.
`402`	`insufficient_balance`	Your balance doesn't cover the task price.
`404`	`unknown_type`	That task type doesn't exist.
`429`	`rate_limited`	Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling.

Read the full KIT documentation →