Science Balancing Equations

WATER is made from OXYGEN and HYDROGEN Hydrogen + Oxygen Water

That’s two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to make one molecule of water.

The problem is ….. Hydrogen goes around in twos, as H 2 Hydrogen goes around in twos, as H 2 Oxygen also goes around in twos, as O 2 Oxygen also goes around in twos, as O 2

So when Water is made … There’s an oxygen atom left over There’s an oxygen atom left over …. And that doesn’t happen!

So we do some balancing … We makes sure we use enough hydrogen so we don’t have any leftover single oxygen atoms. Let’s try two of hydrogen 2 ….  2H 2 O 2H 2 + O 2 But still only one oxygen 2 molecule ….. 2H 2 O means 2 molecules of H2O (water) are made

So two H 2 molecules bond with only one O 2 molecule …  2H 2 O 2H 2 + O 2

Which looks like this …. 2H 2 + O 2  2H 2 O

That’s why we add extra molecules of reactants. But we must always make sure that these extra amounts are also added to the product of the equation.