The compond in general wo=uld be CxHyOz
And we have been tol it has:
1) Three times as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms => y = 3x and
2) Hal as many oxygen atoms as carbon atoms => z = x/2
Then you can represent the compound as:
Cx H3x Ox/2
And to obtain the least integer ratio multiply by 2 an divide by x.
Step by step
1) multiply by 2 => C2xH6xOx
2) divide by x => C2H6O
Then the empirical formula is C2H6O. There you can see that there are 3 times as many atoms of H as atoms of C, and half atoms of O as atoms of C.
Answer: C2H6O
