Your reactants are a hydrocarbon and oxygen. Your products are carbon dioxide and water. What type of reaction do you have?

1 Answer
anor277
Feb 28, 2016

A combustion reaction, which is (i) a special case of redox reactions, and (ii) which drives our industrial society.

Explanation:

We can give the general combustion reaction for an alkane as:

C_nH_(2n+2) + (3n+1)/2O_2 rarr nCO_2 + (n+1)H_2O + Delta

Is this balanced? If it's not, it should be!

Carbon is oxidized up to its maximum oxidation state +IV (from FORMAL oxidation states of -III and -II in the alkane); zerovalent oxygen gas is reduced to a -II oxidation state. These reactions are strongly exothermic in that while we break STRONG C-H and O=O bonds, we make STRONGER C=O and O-H bonds, with a net release of energy.

The reaction represents complete combustion in that all of the carbon reactant is oxidized to C(IV). Under conditions of incomplete combustion (for instance in the internal combustion reaction or a furnace) SOME of the hydrocarbon could be oxidized to C-=O or particulate C.

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