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Balance equation


chemistryishard

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I will take this stepwise:

 

C5H11OH + O2 -> CO2 + H2O

 

1. Count the number of C's on each side: 5 on left, and 1 on right side:

2. Multiply CO2 with 5

 

We are now at:

 

C5H11OH + O2 -> 5CO2 + H2O

 

4.Now count the number of H's on each side: 12 on left, side, 2 on right side.

5. To balance hydrogen, multiply H2O with 6

 

We now have:

 

C5H11OH + O2 -> 5CO2 + 6H2O

 

6: Count the O's on each side to find out if there is any imbalance in oxygen: 3 on left side, 16 on right side. We need 13 more O on the left side, and the only allowed molecule to add now is more oxygen.

 

Here comes the trick: use fractional molecules while balancing the equation:

 

We add 6.5 molecules of O2 (which equals 13 atoms of O), and get a total of 7.5 O2 molecules on the left side.

 

We now have:

 

C5H11OH + 7.5O2 -> 5CO2 + 6H2O

 

We usually do not present balanced equations with fractions, so to get rid of the fraction, we multiply the whole equation with 2:

 

2C5H11OH + 15O2 -> 10CO2 + 12H2O

 

10 C on left, 10 C on right

24 H on left, 24 H on right

32 O on left, 32 O on right

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