The coefficients in a balanced chemical equation always can expre...

Question

The coefficients in a balanced chemical equation always can express the ratio of

Accepted Answer

Welcome back everyone. We have a true or false example which states that the balanced chemical equation of sodium phosphate reacting with calcium chloride produces calcium phosphate and sodium chloride. And this can be used to determine the stoic geometry of the reaction. And the mole ratio of sodium phosphate to sodium chloride is 1 to 1. So we're going to need to first recall our law of conservation of mass. Recall that according to this law, the total sum of the mass of our reactants should equal the total sum of the masses of our products. And from this understanding, we can thus conclude that mass is conserved in chemical reactions and matter is transformed from one form to another in a chemical reaction. Thus, we should also note that our number of atoms on the reactant side in the equation should equal the number of atoms on the product side in a chemical equation. And in order to ensure that we have this balance, we need to utilize stoic geometric coefficients in a balanced equation. So this is used to balance chemical reactions. So recall that the stom meric coefficients would be the source of molar ratios in which we are able to compare quantities in terms of moles or molecules of different reagents in a chemical reaction. Notice that from our pumps, we're given the reaction where we have sodium phosphate, a soluble reactant reacting with calcium chloride also soluble and a double replacement reaction where we have our product, calcium phosphate, which is an insoluble precipitate or solid. And our second product is sodium chloride. We need to check if we have a balanced chemical reaction to confirm the 1 to 1 ratio that the prompt states is between sodium phosphate and sodium chloride. So beginning by noting down our atoms in the reaction on both sides of our equation, we have sodium calcium phosphorus, chlorine and oxygen. To compare on our reactant side, given by the subscript of three and sodium phosphate, we have three atoms of sodium, we have one atom of phosphate and given by the subscript of four in sodium phosphate. We have four atoms of oxygen all on the reactant side. For calcium, we have one atom of calcium on the reactant side. And for chlorine given by the subscript of two in calcium chloride, we have two atoms of chlorine on the reactant side. For our product side, we have one atom of sodium, one atom of chlorine, given by the subscript of three in calcium phosphate. We have three atoms of calcium and given by the subscript of two outside of parentheses. In calcium phosphate, we have two atoms of phosphorus and eight atoms because we would multiply the subscript of four in calcium phosphate by the subscript of two outside of parentheses, which would again give us eight atoms of oxygen on the product side. We're going to begin by recalling that. In order to balance out Adams, we want to start with non hydrogen and non oxygen atoms. First notice that we do not have a balanced chemical equation because we have different amounts of atoms on each side of our reaction. Let's start with bouncing out sodium. We can utilize a coefficient of two in front of our reactant sodium phosphate to give us now, six atoms of sodium on the reactant side, which will also change our number of phosphorus to a total of two. Now and will change our number of oxygen on the reactant side to the subscript of four times the coefficient of two, which would give us eight atoms of oxygen on the reactant side, we've balanced out oxygen. And in order to finish balancing out sodium, we can place a coefficient of six in front of sodium chloride on the product side, which would give us six atoms of sodium on both sides of our reaction. Now, let's balance out calcium. We can begin by placing a coefficient of three in front of calcium chloride on the reactant side to give us three atoms of calcium, which would change our number of chlorine to now three times the coefficient of three times the subscript of two and calcium chloride to now six atoms of chlorine on the reactant side. And in order to balance out chlorine, we also should have noted that because of that coefficient of six in front of sodium chloride, we also now actually have six atoms of chlorine on the product side. So it appears that we now have a fully balanced reaction given by our coefficients 23 and six that we added in, in order to ensure that we had the same number of atoms on both sides of our reaction. And thus, we can observe that between our ratio of sodium phosphate N A three P 04 to sodium chloride. According to our balanced chemical reaction, we have a 2 to 6 molar ratio which we can produce down to 1 to 3. So looking at our prompt, we're told that the molar ratio was 1 to 1, we would disagree with this statement and conclude that our final answer is that the given statement is a false statement. I hope that this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.

Struggling with General Chemistry?

The coefficients in a balanced chemical equation always can express the ratio of

Watch next

Stoichiometry practice set