How would I calculate percentage of components of a mixture?

I've been separating a mixture in my chemistry lab. I have the mass of each component of the mixture, and the starting mass.



But, I lost some mass in the separation process.



Would the percentage of each component be...



(Mass of component) / (Starting Mass) * 100 or



(Mass of component) / (Final Mass) * 100?How would I calculate percentage of components of a mixture?
good question.. did you lose equal quantities of the components? in which case



(final mass of 1 component / final total mass) x 100% = mass %



or did you lose more of 1 component than the other. in which case.. % of the other =



(final mass of other component / starting mass) x 100% = mass %



then you can figure out the % mass of the first component from there...

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that's a tough call. I can't answer it for you without being there watching you do the experiment. Either way, explain what happenend in your lab report and call this a source of error.How would I calculate percentage of components of a mixture?
you're very welcome

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How would I calculate percentage of components of a mixture?
You can create and destroy matter?!? Wow! You need to corner the market on that.