4. What is a balanced chemical equation? Why should chemical equations be
balanced?
Answers
Explanation:
A balanced chemical reaction is an equation that have equal numbers of each type of atom on both sides of the arrow.
A chemical equation is a written symbolic representation of a chemical reaction. The reactant chemical(s) are given on the left-hand side and the product chemical(s) on the right-hand side. The law of conservation of mass states that no atoms can be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction, so the number of atoms that are present in the reactants has to balance the number of atoms that are present in the products.
A chemical equation needs to be balanced because a chemical reaction is just a rearrangement of atoms. Atoms themselves are neither created nor destroyed during the course of a chemical reaction. The chemical equation needs to be balanced to follow the law of conservation of mass.