Balancing Chemical Equations
- Atoms are conserved in a chemical reaction
- The identities (formulas) of the compounds must never be changed in balancing a chemical equation
- Because atoms cannot be created or destroyed and because you can't change the formulas of the reactants or products, the equation must be balanced by adding more molecules to reactants and/or products
- Each chemical reaction has many possible balanced equations
Practice with Balancing Equations: http://www.files.chem.vt.edu/RVGS/ACT/notes/scripts/bal_eq1.html
How to Write and Balance Equations:
- Read the description of the chemical reaction. What are the reactants, the products, and their states? Write the appropriate formulas.
- Write the unbalanced equation that summarizes the information from step 1.
- Balance the equation by inspection, starting with the most complicated molecule. Proceed element by element to determine what coefficients are necessary so that the same number of each type of atom appears on boh the reactant side and the product side. Do not change the identities (formulas) of any of the reactants or products.
- Check to see that the coefficients used give the same number of each type of atom on both sides of the arrow. (an atom may be present in an element, a compound, or an ion) Also check to see that the coefficients used are the smallest integers that give the balanced equation. This can be done by determining whether all coefficients can be divided by the same integer to give a set of smaller integer coefficients.