What is meant by the term 'balanced equation'?

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Accepted Answer

Welcome back everyone. We need to choose the correct statement from the following statements. On the topic of a balanced equation choice. A says that in a balanced equation, the reactants are in gaseous state and the products are in the same state. We want to recall that there is no correlation between the states of our substances and a, a balanced equation. So statement A is going to be a false statement and we would rule it out from our answer. It's an incorrect statement. Moving on to statement B it says that in a balanced equation, the number of gaseous reactants is equal to the number of gaseous products. We would rule choice or rather statement B as a false statement. And this is because we would recall something known as decomposition reactions where we have a single reactant or a single reactant compound will say which decomposes into multiple products. And that would essentially prove that statement B is a false statement because the number of products versus reactants is not exactly the way to look at balancing an equation since we have things such as decomposition reactions which vary in terms of our number of reactants versus our number of species on the product side. So statement B, we can rule out and next, we have statement C which says that in a balanced equation, the kinds of numbers, the kinds and numbers of atoms are the same on both sides of the chemical equation. Let's think of a hypothetical reaction where we have two moles of a reacting with one mole of B to produce. And actually let's make our B reactant B diatomic. So we'll place a subscript of two next to B. And then on our product side, we'll produce two moles of A B comparing our reactant side to our product side. We have two moles of A and two moles of B on the reactant side. And we also observe those same amounts on our product side, meaning that this reaction is balanced. And we can see that based on what statement C says the kinds and number of our atoms are the same on both sides of our chemical equation, our reactant side and our product side. So we would say that Z is a true statement and is correct in regards to bouncing a chemical equation. So we can put a check mark next to choice C. And lastly, we have choice D which says that a bounce equation always uses the double headed arrow recall that a double headed arrow is only used in equilibrium reactions. And in terms of equilibrium reactions, we're only worried about the reaction rate. We're not worried about our number of atoms and kinds of atoms on both sides of our equation. So a balanced equation is going to use a normal arrowhead as we drew here. So choice D is a false statement and that means that the only correct choice to complete this example is going to be choice C in a balanced equation. The kinds and number of atoms are the same on both sides of the chemical equation. So I hope this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.

What is meant by the term 'balanced equation'?

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Key Concepts

Chemical Equation

Law of Conservation of Mass

Balancing Chemical Equations