Need Chemistry help?

Question

How do you predict products? For example: Predict the product and write a balanced equation for the reaction of potassium with chlorine. Why does potassium have to lose 1 ion? Where does that ion go to, the Chlorine? Now the balanced formula looks like this: K+CI2=KCI. I know how to get K+CI2, but not KCI. Please explain as simply as possible. It would also help to put sites where I can get through explanations

Answer 1

Both potassium and chlorine, like other main group elements, will do what they can to get electron configurations that are the same as the nearest noble gas; i.e. they will either lose electrons or gain electrons to have a completely filled outer shell of electrons.

For potassium, whose electron configuration is 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 4s1, the easiest way to get there is lose an electron. Chlorine, being 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p5, has actually two ways to get there: gain an electron or form one covalent bond to share another electron with another element, both of which will fill its octet. Which route it takes will depend on what it reacts with - potassium doesn't form covalent bonds, as it is not very electronegative, so the bond formed between chlorine and potassium is ionic, not covalent, and there are no shared electrons.

So, given that potassium goes to K+ and Cl goes to Cl-, the compound they form between them, to balance the charge, is KCl. Since chlorine actually exists in nature as a diamtomic molecule, the actual balanced reaction is:

2 K + Cl2 ---> 2KCl

Answer 2

Your equation is not balanced.
K + Cl -----> KCl

one mole of potassium reacts with one mole of chlorine ion to form one mole of potassium chloride.
Use the molecular weight, that equals grams per mole.
Thus you can predict how much K will react with a known amount of Cl to form KCl

Answer 3

Potassium and chlorine are both univalent.so they will combine in the ratio of 1:1
so K+Cl=KCl
but Cl does not exist in the atomic form and it exists as diatomic molecule
so 2K+Cl2=2KCl is the equation

Answer 4

K is metal, and Cl is a gas so it gets 2. (all gases get 2)
2K + Cl2= 2KCl

Answer 5

Your reaction is not balanced:

2K + Cl2 ---> 2KCl