Question

8. Fill in the blanks with the correct words.

(e). ${\mathrm{H}}_2+{\mathrm{O}}_2\to {\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$ is a/an ________ (balanced/unbalanced) equation.

Answer 1

• $\mathrm{Hydrogen}+\mathrm{Oxygen}\to \mathrm{Water}$ This is a word equation. A word equation gives the names of the substance involved in a reaction.
• If we replace the word shown above with the correct symbols and chemical formulae, we will get an unbalanced equation, as shown here:

${\mathrm{H}}_2+{\mathrm{O}}_2\to {\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$

• There are unequal numbers of each type of atom on the left-hand side compared with the right-hand side.
• To make them equal, we need to adjust the number of atoms of some of the substances until we get equal numbers of each type of atom on both sides.
• Therefore, the balanced equation will be:

$2{\mathrm{H}}_2+{\mathrm{O}}_2\to 2{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$

Therefore, ${\mathrm{H}}_2+{\mathrm{O}}_2\to {\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$ is an unbalanced equation.