Chemistry

Word Equations

A word equation gives the names of substances involved in a reaction. For example:

Copper + Oxygen > Copper (II) Oxide

The copper and oxygen are the reactants, and copper (ii) oxide is the product.

Balanced Equations

Balanced equations give the symbols and formulas of the substance involved in a reaction. In the reaction above, if we just replace the words shown above with the correct chemical formulas, we will get an unbalanced equation as shown here:

Cu + O2 > CuO

To mke things equal, we need to adjust the number of units of some of the substances until we get equal numbers of each type of atom on both sides of the arrow.

Here is the Balanced symbol equation:

2Cu + O2 >…