What will be the product when zinc and silver nitrate undergo a single-replacement reaction?
1 Answer
Silver metal and aqueous zinc nitrate.
Explanation:
This single replacement reaction will produce silver metal,
Zinc is above silver is the metal reactivity series, so it will replace silver in silver nitrate.
The balanced chemical equation that describes this reaction looks like this
#"Zn"_ ((s)) + 2"AgNO"_ (3(aq)) -> 2"Ag"_ ((s)) + "Zn"("NO"_ 3)_ (2(aq))#
Because silver nitrate and zinc nitrate are both soluble ionic compounds, you can rewrite this equation as the complete ionic equation first
#"Zn"_ ((s)) + 2"Ag"_ ((aq))^(+) + 2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-) -> 2"Ag"_ ((s)) + "Zn"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-)#
then remove the spectator ions, which are those ions that are present on both sides of the equation
#"Zn"_ ((s)) + 2"Ag"_ ((aq))^(+) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-)))) -> 2"Ag"_ ((s)) + "Zn"_ ((aq))^(2+) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-))))#
to get the net ionic equation
#"Zn"_ ((s)) + 2"Ag"_ ((aq))^(+) -> 2"Ag"_ ((s)) + "Zn"_ ((aq))^(2+)#
Notice that this is also a redox reaction.
Here zinc metal is being oxidized to zinc cations,