Question

Chemistry balancing chemical equation 0

Answer 1

a typical balanced equation the numbers in blue are called your coefficients and represent the number of moles for each compound shown.

Answer-Key-Balanced-Equation-Chemistry

Coefficients and Balanced Equation

This written chemical reaction tells us that “2 moles of hydrogen, H­2 , react with 1 mole of oxygen , O­2 , to produce 2 moles of water, H2O. ”

The numbers in red are the subscripts and combined with the coefficients give us the number of each particular element.

Balancing-Equation-Inspection

Balanced Chemical Reaction

Balancing a Chemical Equation

Just follow our methods for balancing each of the following chemical equations and you’ll be an expert in no time.

Balancing-Equations-Worksheet-Answers

Unbalanced Chemical Equations

For all the equations you will need to set up two lists of elements: one for the reactants and another for the products. If your numerical values in both lists don’t match then you’ll have to balance the chemical equation.

Chemical Equation #1

STEP 1: Set up a list for the elements that are reactants and another list for the elements that are products. The two lists don’t match so we will need to balance the chemical equation.

Algebraic-Balance

Traditional Balance

STEP 2: Start at the top and going down both lists make sure to balance each element one by one.

Balancing-carbon-atoms

Balancing carbon atoms

STEP 3: Balance the number of carbon atoms by placing a “3” in front of CO­2. The “3” is distributed so the number of carbon and oxygen atoms are both affected.

Algebraic-Balance-Carbon-atoms

Algebraic Balance (Carbon Atoms)

STEP 4: Continuing down the lists we next balance the number of hydrogen atoms. We do this by placing a “4” in front of H­2O that it distributed to hydrogen and oxygen atom.

Algebraic-Balance-Hydrogen-Atoms

Algebraic Balance (Hydrogen Atoms)

STEP 5: Finally balance balance the oxygen atoms by placing a “5” in front of O2.

Algebraic-Balance-Oxygen-Atoms

Algebraic Balance (Oxygen Atoms)

Chemical Equation #2

STEP 1: Set up your two lists of the elements. Start at the top of the list and work your way down both lists to balance the chemical reaction.

Unbalanced-Chemical-Equation

Unbalanced Chemical Equation

Since both the sodium and chlorine atoms match we continue to the oxygen atoms.

STEP 2: To balance the oxygen atoms we place a “2” in front of NaClO3 and a “3” in front of O2. This gives “6” oxygen atoms on both sides of the chemical equation.

Algebraic-Balance-Oxygen-Atoms

Algebraic Balance (Oxygen Atoms)

The “2” in front of NaClO3 is also distributed to the sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) atoms. This means they will have to be balanced as well.

STEP 3: To balance the sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) atoms we place a “2” in front of NaCl.

Balanced-Decomposition-Equation

Balanced Decomposition Equation