Can anyone explain how to balance a chemical equation so I can understand it really easily?

Question

Make it as understandable as possible- the teachers cant explain it to me! Thanks

Answer 1

The equation is balanced when all the components on one side match all the components on the other side but in a different order.

2H +O = H20 is water but my computer dont do subscripts

Answer 2

First it is important that you know what is going to be produced when the reaction takes place. If you know this you can start writing the equation. eg.:

Na2CO3 + HCl = NaCL + H2O + CO2

But this doesn't balance, so take each of the elements on the left and the right and see how many of each you have on each side:

On the left: Na = 2, C = 1, O = 3, H = 1, Cl = 1
On the right: Na = 1, C = 1, O = 3, H = 2, Cl = 1

But you must have the same number on the left as the right, without changing the formulas of the compounds, so change the numbers of molecules:

Na2CO3 + 2HCl = 2NaCl + H2O + CO2

Now:
On the left: Na = 2, C = 1, O = 3, H = 2, Cl = 2
On the right: Na = 2, C = 1, O = 3, H = 2, Cl = 2

A bit simple perhaps.

Answer 3

The balancing is very easy once you have the general equation of the reaction, the key is very simple you need to have exactly as many atoms (or ions more exactly) of an element on both sides of the equation

i.e. H2 + O2 => H2O

Note that you have 1 molecule of Hydrogen which has a formula of H2 so you have in fact 2 hydrogen atoms on the left and 1 molecule of oxygen with formula of O2 which means 2 atoms of oxygen on the left. However on the right hand side the product is H2O which means you only have 2 atoms of hydrogen and only 1 of oxygen for this it is necessary to balance it by adding 1/2 in front of the oxygen molecue on the left side.

H2 + 1/2 O2 => H2O

This way half a molecule will give you only one atom of oxygen which is all you need for the example given. Now this is obviously the easiest example i took just to make the explanation simpler but the process of balancing the equation is pretty much the same always check though that the number of atoms equal on both sides for EACH element only than you have balanced the equation and don't worry if it takes you a bit to balance it sometimes you will need to try different numbers until you balance it and fractions are also very handy so you are allowed to use them too. You must make sure every element on the left side appears on the right side and vice versa before trying to balance it with numbers. Good Luck hope that helps...

Ps: The number that appears as a subscript tells you how many atoms are there in that molecule and the number that stands at the front tells you how many moles there are so for the example above the 1/2 means half a mole of oxygen. Always multiply any numbers in front i.e mole number by subscript number i.e number of atoms to get the total number of atoms for each element once you have that balancing gets easy.

Answer 4

Well everything on one side must appear on the other side..

e.g. CH4 + (2 x O2) = CO2 + (2 x H2O)
When you burn methane
Both sides have 1 C atom, 4 H atoms and 4 O atoms

That is a balanced equation from the point of view of atoms present.

However there is no way to predict the products simply by counting the atoms you start with.

You need to understand how the chemicals react for that.

Answer 5

According to the law of conservation of mass, a chemical equation must be balanced. This means that the total number of atoms on the reactant side must be equal to the total number of atoms on the product side. This really involves three skills; interpreting a chemical formula, determining whether or not a chemical equation is balanced, and balancing the equation.

I. Interpreting a Chemical Formula.

If you can read a chemical formula correctly, you can check the balance on a chemical equation. One of the biggest problems for new Chemistry students is correctly reading the number of atoms inside parenthesis. Let us practice this skill first, with a couple of examples.

Example 1. How many atoms of each element are there in one formula unit of ammonium sulfide?

Ammonium Sulfide is (NH4)2S

Remember that a subscript pertains only to the element that precedes it, unless it precedes parenthesis, in which case it is a multiplier for each element in the parenthesis. In the example above, the subscript 4 only pertains to hydrogen, while the subscript 2 acts as a multiplier for both nitrogen and hydrogen, giving us as a final tally;

(NH4)2S

2 atoms of nitrogen; 8 atoms of hydrogen; and 1 atom of sulfur.


http://richardbowles.tripod.com/chemistry/balance.htm#part1

Answer 6

If you can do very easy mathematics equations your laughing. Think of it as a maths equation as per example given above.

The distributive law (x+y)*z = zx + zy so (NH4)2 is the same as (N + H4) * 2 = N2 + H8. To check that you have the balanced the equation correctly add up all N, H's etc using the distributive law above on both sides, subtract all N's etc. from 1 side away from the other side. If its zero for all the elements then its balanced!

Answer 7

you need to have the same number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation. (that is you can't suddenly create matter during the reaction)

and then the compounds on each side of the equation also have to make sense in terms of the number of atoms of each element it takes to make that compound.

Answer 8

basically just concentrate on making sure the number of moles of one thing one one side is equal to the number of moles of the same thing on the other side. do this for each element, one by one, and you'll see that everything should all balance nicely. it takes practice.

Answer 9

add coeffiecents so you get the same number of each element on each side.

so that if you had...
?N20 -> N4O2

then, you would have to multiply the reactants by 2, so...
2N2O -> N4O2

obviously it gets harder than this, but you wanted to simplify things.