What Are The Steps In Balancing Chemical Equations?
What are the steps in balancing chemical equations?
Good Day....
Na + Cl2 → NaCl
↓ ↓
reactant product
Considering the chemical equation above in which Na + Cl2 is the reactant and NaCl is the product.
- First we have to know that the reason why we balance chemical reaction because according to the law of conservation of mass, the mass of reactant is equal to the mass of the product. The mass of the reactant and product is dependent to the number of atoms present in both of them. We could also say that reactant and product have equal mass if they have the same number of atoms.
- 2nd. Identify the elements in the product and reactant. In our example we have Na (sodium) and Cl (chlorine).
Na + Cl2 → NaCl
- 3rd. Count the elements in the reactant and product so that we can identify what elements are not equal in number. Both reactant and product have one element of Na but differ in the number of Cl (one in the product and 2 in the reactant).
- 4th. Add coefficient before the element or the compound to balance the number of atoms both side. In our example I put a coefficient of 2 before NaCl in the product and 2 before Na in the reactant to balance the number of atoms.
2Na + Cl2 → 2NaCl
- 5th. Count again the number of atoms in the reactant and the product. If the number of atoms in the reactant is equal in the number of atoms in the product then the equation is balanced.
2Na + Cl2 → 2NaCl
Na = 2 Na = 2
Cl = 2 Cl = 2
Both reactant and product have equal number of atoms and they are now balanced.
Hope it helps....=)
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