What does n2 o5 yields n2 o4 plus o2 into 2n2 o5 yields 2n2 o4 plus o2 mean?

Answer 1

Dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5) yields dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) plus oxygen (O2)

Oxygen, however, is normally found in a dimer when in elemental form (O2).

So, unfortunately this is not a balanced equation as one starts with 5 oxygen atoms, and ends up with 6 oxygen atoms.

To balance the equation, it is changed to:

2N2O5 --> 2N2O4 + O2

Where one has two dinitrogen pentoxide molecules yielding two dinitrogen tetroxide plus one oxygen dimer molecule.

Unfortunately, this is not a very logical equation. The reason is that dinitrogen pentoxide is a very different molecule than dinitrogen tetroxide.

dinitrogen pentoxide is of the form: O2N-O-NO2 where the two nitrogens are bonded to an oxygen in the middle.

dinitrogen tetroxide is of the form: O2N-NO2 where the two nitrogen molecules are bonded to each other.

So to convert from one to another, one would have to break the two N-O bonds in the first molecule, and magically rebuild a N-N bond in the second molecule. Not to say this couldn't happen, but it would likely be difficult to do directly.

Also, note by convention, all abbreviations for chemical names will start with capital letters (N, O, Cl, etc.)