What is the balanced equation for the reaction between acetic acid and NaOH?
1 Answer
Here's what I got.
Explanation:
Acetic acid,
The unbalanced chemical equation that describes this neutralization reaction looks like this
CH3COOH(aq)+NaOH(aq)→CH3COONa(aq)+H2O(l)
Now, you could check to see if this chemical equation is balanced by counting the number of atoms of each element present on both sides of the equation, or you could check by using the fact that sodium hydroxide is a strong base.
This implies that sodium hydroxide dissociates completely in aqueous solution to produce sodium cations and hydroxide anions
NaOH(aq)→Na+(aq)+OH−(aq)
Sodium acetate is soluble in aqueous solution, so it will also exist as ions
CH3COONa(aq)→CH3COO−(aq)+Na+(aq)
Put this together to get
CH3COOH(aq)+Na+(aq)+OH−(aq)→CH3COO−(aq)+Na+(aq)+H2O(l)
The sodium cations are spectator ions because they exist as ions on both sides of the equation. This means that you can rewrite the chemical equation as
CH3COOH(aq)+OH−(aq)→CH3COO−(aq)+H2O(l)
Notice that the reactants' side has an undissociated acetate anion and the products' side has a dissociated acetate anion, so nothing to balance out here.
Similarly, the reactants' side has an undissociated proton and a dissociated hydroxide anion and the products' side has a water molecule, so once again, there's nothing to balance out here.
Therefore, you can say that the balanced chemical equation that describes this raection looks like this
CH3COOH(aq)+NaOH(aq)→CH3COONa(aq)+H2O(l)
