Suppose 10 atoms of carbon reacts with 20 atoms of oxygen to form 10 molecules of carbon dioxide. According to the law of conservation of matter, how many atoms are present in this reaction
According to the law of conservation of matter, the total number of atoms before and after a chemical reaction must be the same.
In this reaction, we are given that 10 atoms of carbon react with 20 atoms of oxygen to form 10 molecules of carbon dioxide.
For each molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2), there is 1 atom of carbon (C) and 2 atoms of oxygen (O).
Therefore, in the reactants (10 atoms of carbon + 20 atoms of oxygen), we have:
10 atoms of carbon and 20 atoms of oxygen.
And in the products (10 molecules of carbon dioxide), we have:
10 atoms of carbon and 20 atoms of oxygen.
Therefore, the total number of atoms present in this reaction, before and after, is 10 atoms of carbon and 20 atoms of oxygen.
According to the law of conservation of matter, the number of atoms remains constant before and after a chemical reaction. In this case, we have 10 atoms of carbon and 20 atoms of oxygen reacting to form 10 molecules of carbon dioxide.
Each molecule of carbon dioxide contains one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen. So, in total, there are 10 atoms of carbon and 10 x 2 = 20 atoms of oxygen in the 10 molecules of carbon dioxide.
Therefore, the total number of atoms before and after the reaction remains the same, which is 10 atoms of carbon + 20 atoms of oxygen = 30 atoms.