Question

Explain how you could make the salt zinc chloride using zinc metal.


What is the word equation for the reaction?

Answer 1

Hello there!

Zinc metal when reacted with hydrochloric acid forms zinc chloride.

Zn + HCl → ZnCl + H

You can see here that the reaction is single displacement where one component from a reactant exhanges with anotehr to form a new product.

Here, zinc exchanges with the hydrogen in HCl (hydrochloric acid) to form ZnCl.

Hydrogen (H) is a byproduct here thus in the reaction, you will observe formation of bubbles. The bubbles are hydrogen bubbles because hydrogen is a gas.

I hope this helps!

Answer 2

Zn (metal) + Hydrogen Chloride ( liquid) -> Zinc Chloride ( sol.) + hydrogen (gaseous).

This is the word equation for the production of Zinc Chloride using Zinc in its solid form :

Zn + (2H+) +  (2Cl-) --> Zn(2+) + (2Cl-) + H2.

An anhydrous sample is purified by sublimation in a stream of HCl gas, followed by heating the sublimate to 400-degree Celsius in a stream of dry nitrogen gas. This is the process.