Balancing Chemical Equations

Defining Chemical Equation Balancing

• The concept of chemical equation balancing involves the same amount of atoms for each element being on both sides of the equation.
• The coefficients of the elements must be changed, NOT the subscripts (e.g. $3(H_2)$ not $H_6$.)
• Balancing equations is similar to mathematics.

Example of Balancing

$N_2+H_2\to N{H}_3$

• This is an example of a chemical equation that forms ammonia.
• This equation is NOT balanced.
• In order to balance this equation, the amount of atoms for each element must be the same on both sides. $N_2+3(H_2)\to 2(N{H}_3)$
• Now that all the elements have the same amount of atoms on each side, this equation is now balanced.

Tips for Balancing

• You can balance chemical equations easily by
  • counting the amount of atoms each element has
  • balancing the easiest molecule/compound that can be found
  • double any prime number (e.g. 7 has no multiples, so you can double it to 14)

Example of Balancing Equations

$Fe+H_{2}S{O}_4\to F{e}_2(S{O}_4{)}_3+H_2$

• This equation is NOT balanced.
• You can easily balance this by
  • balancing $Fe$ by making it $2(Fe)$ on the LHS. ($2(Fe)=F{e}_2$)

$2(Fe)+H_{2}S{O}_4\to F{e}_2(S{O}_4{)}_3+H_2$