When ammonia gas is burned in oxygen the products formed are water and nitrogen monoxide gas. Write the balanced equation showing this reaction
NH4 + O2 --> H2O + NO
i am stuck balancing this
I should call your attention to your formula for ammonia. It is NH3 and not NH4. That could be why you are having trouble balancing it.
2,3,4,2 try as coefficents.
To balance the equation, you need to ensure that there are an equal number of atoms on both sides of the equation. Let's start by balancing the nitrogen atoms first, as they tend to appear in fewer compounds.
In the given equation, there is 1 nitrogen atom on the left side (as part of NH4) and 1 nitrogen atom on the right side (as part of NO). Therefore, nitrogen is already balanced.
Next, let's balance the hydrogen atoms. There are 4 hydrogen atoms on the left side (as part of NH4) and 2 hydrogen atoms on the right side (as part of H2O). To balance hydrogen, we can add a coefficient of 2 in front of H2O.
The equation now looks like this:
NH4 + O2 → 2H2O + NO
Finally, let's balance the oxygen atoms. There are 2 oxygen atoms on the left side (as part of O2) and 4 oxygen atoms on the right side (2 in each H2O molecule). To balance the oxygen, we can add a coefficient of 5/2 in front of O2.
The final balanced equation is:
NH4 + (5/2) O2 → 2H2O + NO
However, it is generally recommended to write whole-number coefficients. So, to eliminate the fraction, we can multiply every coefficient by 2 to get rid of the denominator:
2NH4 + 5O2 → 4H2O + 2NO
And there you have it! The balanced equation is:
2NH4 + 5O2 → 4H2O + 2NO