What must be on both sides to balance a chemical equation?

Answer 1

1).You may only put numbers in front of molecules, never altering the formula itself.

2).Balance complicated molecules with lots of different atoms first. Putting numbers in front of these may mess up other molecules, so use the simpler molecules to adjust these major changes.

and another tip that's useful is if you regconise the atoms making up a standard group such as sulphate, nitrate, phosphate, ammonium etc. that survive unscathed throughout the chemical reaction, treat them as an indivisible item to be balanced as a whole.

Answer 2

The number one thing is to NOT change the chemical formulas by changing the subscripts. You may only change the amount of a reactant or product by adding a coefficient in front of its chemical formula. You add coefficients in order to make the number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation the same. This is to satisfy the law of conservation of mass/matter. As an example, I will use the chemical reaction in which hydrogen and oxygen combine to produce (yield) water.

H2 + O2 --> H2O

Notice that the number of oxygen atoms are not the same on both sides. I cannot change the chemical formulas, but I can change the amount of each substance by adding one or more coefficients. So I am going to add a coefficient of 2 in front of the H2O.

H2 + O2 --> 2H2O

Now notice that the number of hydrogen atoms are no longer balanced, even though the number of oxygen atoms are balanced. I have 2 hydrogen atoms on the left side and 4 on the right. So now I am going to add a coefficient of 2 in front of the H2.

2H2 + O2 --> 2H2O

Now I have the same number of hydrogen and oxygen atoms on both sides of the equation, and the equation is now balanced. I did not change any chemical formulas, I only changed coefficients.

Answer 3

Chemical equations usually do not come already balanced. Making sure they are balanced must be done before the equation can be used in any chemically meaningful way.A balanced equation has equal numbers of each type of atom on each side of the equation.

Answer 4

rectants, products, proper number of moles of each in the reaction.