Question

What information does a balanced chemical equation provide?

Answer 1

A balanced equation is an equation for a chemical reaction in which the number of atoms for each element in the reaction and the total charge are the same for both the reactants and the products. In other words, the mass and the charge are balanced on both sides of the reaction.

Also Known As: Balancing the equation, balancing the reaction, conservation of charge and mass.

For example, this equation for the reaction between iron oxide and carbon to form iron and carbon dioxide is unbalanced with respect to mass:

Fe2O3 + C → Fe + CO2

The equation is balanced for charge because both sides of the equation have no ions (net neutral charge).

The equation has 2 iron atoms on the reactants side of the equation (left of the arrow), but 1 iron atom on the products side (right of the arrow). Even without counting up the quantities of other atoms, you can tell the equation is not balanced. The goal of balancing the equation is to have the same number of each type of atom on both the left and right sides of the arrow.

This is achieved by changing the coefficients of the compounds (numbers placed in front of compound formulas). The subscripts are never changed (small numbers to the right of some atoms, as for iron and oxygen in this example). Changing the subscripts would alter the chemical identity of the compound!