Balance the following the chemical equation:
Mg + O2 → MgO
2Mg + O2 → 2MgO
To balance the chemical equation Mg + O2 → MgO, you need to ensure that there is an equal number of atoms on both sides of the equation.
Here are the steps to balance the equation:
Step 1: Count the number of atoms on each side of the equation:
On the left side (reactants):
- Magnesium (Mg): 1 atom
- Oxygen (O2): 2 oxygen atoms (since O2 is a diatomic molecule)
On the right side (products):
- Magnesium oxide (MgO): 1 magnesium atom and 1 oxygen atom
Step 2: Balance the magnesium atoms by adding a coefficient in front of Mg:
Mg + O2 → MgO
Step 3: Balance the oxygen atoms by adding a coefficient in front of O2:
Mg + O2 → 2MgO
Now the equation is balanced since there is one magnesium atom and two oxygen atoms on both sides:
1 Mg + 1 O2 → 2 MgO
To balance the chemical equation, Mg + O2 → MgO, we need to make sure that the number of atoms of each element is the same on both sides of the equation.
Let's start by counting the atoms of each element:
On the left side (reactants):
- Magnesium (Mg): 1 atom
- Oxygen (O): 2 atoms
On the right side (products):
- Magnesium oxide (MgO): 1 atom of Mg and 1 atom of O
To balance the equation, we can adjust the coefficients (numbers in front of the formulas) until the number of atoms of each element is the same on both sides.
In this case, we need to balance the oxygen atoms. Since there are 2 oxygen atoms on the left side (O2) and only 1 on the right (MgO), we need to increase the number of oxygen atoms on the right side.
To balance the oxygen, we can put a coefficient of 2 in front of MgO:
Mg + O2 → 2MgO
Now, let's look at the counts again:
On the left side (reactants):
- Magnesium (Mg): 1 atom
- Oxygen (O): 2 atoms
On the right side (products):
- Magnesium oxide (MgO): 2 atoms of Mg and 2 atoms of O
Now, the number of atoms of each element is balanced on both sides of the equation, so the balanced chemical equation is:
2Mg + O2 → 2MgO