Combustion+R.Stacey

Combustion 

A combustion reaction is when a substance rapidly combines with oxygen to produce one or more oxides. The substance combines with oxygen and releases a large amount of energy in the form of light or heat. The product is water vapor. It generally looks like this: A + O2  à CO2 + H2O You may see a reaction like this: Dicarbon Hydrogen gas and Dioxide form Carbon Dioxide and Water. So we start with the names. 1)  Well we know that ‘di’ means 2. So, there are 2 Carbons, a Hydrogen, 2 Oxygen, a Carbon, 2 Oxygen and Water   2)   Now, lets do symbols:  v  C, H, O, CO. H2O 3)  Now, add subscripts  v   C2 + H2 + O2  à  CO2 + H2O   4)   Now balancing! We can never change the subscripts, only the coefficients. Now we can arrage what we already have in a table so we can see what we need: __ 2 __ C __1__ __2__ __ 2 __ H __2__ __ 2 __ O __3__ __5__  v  So the Carbon and Oxygen needs work.  v  So we need to put a ‘2’ in front of CO2  v  But that changes the oxygen. So then we have to get it to be the same amount on both sides, but right now it is 2 and 5. their lowest common factor is 10. so first, let’s see if we can make that work!  v  2C2 + H2 + 5O2  à  4CO2 + 2H2O  v  If we make those changes, we have to make sure we cater to the two oxygen on the right. That gives us a balance of: __ 4 __ C __4__ __ 4 __ H __4__ __ 10 __ O __10__ Yay! Everyone is now happy!    click here to go to the main page 