Balance the equation below:
Fe2O3 + C --> Fe + CO2
Answer with your coefficients in the form "1234
Original:
Fe2O3 + C → Fe + CO2
Balanced:
2Fe2O3 + 3C → 4Fe + 3CO2
To balance the equation Fe2O3 + C -> Fe + CO2, follow these steps:
Step 1: Count the number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation.
On the left side:
Fe: 2
O: 3
C: 1
On the right side:
Fe: 1
O: 2
C: 1
Step 2: Balance the elements that appear in more than one compound.
Start with the element Fe.
Fe2O3 + C -> 2Fe + CO2
Now the Fe atoms are balanced.
Step 3: Balance oxygen (O) by adding coefficients in front of the compounds containing oxygen.
Fe2O3 + C -> 2Fe + 3CO2
Now the O atoms are balanced with 3 on each side.
Step 4: Check other elements for balance.
The carbon (C) atoms are already balanced with 1 on each side.
The final balanced equation is:
Fe2O3 + C -> 2Fe + 3CO2
So the coefficients are 1, 1, 2, and 3:
Fe2O3 + C -> 2Fe + 3CO2
To balance the given equation Fe2O3 + C -> Fe + CO2, we need to ensure that the number of atoms on both sides of the equation is equal.
Let's start by counting the number of atoms for each element on both sides of the equation:
On the left side:
- We have 2 Fe (iron) atoms.
- We have 3 O (oxygen) atoms.
- We have 1 C (carbon) atom.
On the right side:
- We have 1 Fe (iron) atom.
- We have 1 C (carbon) atom.
- We have 2 O (oxygen) atoms.
To balance the Fe (iron) atoms, we need to have the same number on both sides. We can achieve this by placing a coefficient of 2 in front of the Fe on the right side:
Fe2O3 + C -> 2 Fe + CO2
Now, let's balance the O (oxygen) atoms. Since there are 3 O atoms on the left but only 2 on the right side, we need to add a coefficient of 3/2 or 1.5 in front of the CO2 on the right side:
Fe2O3 + C -> 2 Fe + 1.5 CO2
However, it is not ideal to have fractional coefficients in a balanced equation. To convert this to a whole number, we can multiply the entire equation by 2 to eliminate the fractional coefficient:
2 Fe2O3 + 2 C -> 4 Fe + 3 CO2
Now the equation is balanced with the coefficients 2, 2, 4, and 3:
2 Fe2O3 + 2 C -> 4 Fe + 3 CO2