What is a balanced chemical equation? How would you use the law of conservation of mass to explain why a chemical equation must be balanced?
1 Answer
In every chemical equation that has ever been performed, mass is CONSERVED. What does this mean?
Explanation:
Conservation of mass means that if I start with 10 g of reactant, from all sources, at MOST I can get 10 g of product. In practice, I am not even going to get that, because losses inevitably occur on handling. Since mass is a property of atoms and molecules, fundamental particles in other words, it follows that these masses are conserved during a chemical reaction.
Let's examine a simple(?) combustion reaction, that of pentane:
Is this balanced? How do you know? If it is balanced, then there is mass equivalence of reactants,
All of this are examples of stoichiometry. Stoichiometry insists that mass (and atoms and molecules) be balanced with respect to mass and charge.
Note that we practise stoichiometry all the time, For instance when we make a cash or electronic transaction; debits and credits are balanced. If they are not, someone will very soon notice.
