Question

All equations must be balanced to comply with ___________ (Gay Iassac's law/ law of conservation of mass)

Answer 1

Balanced equation:

• A balanced equation is a chemical equation that has an equal number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation.
• Atoms are neither created nor destroyed during a chemical change.
• Therefore, the number of atoms of each kind in the reactants must be equal to those in the products and this is called the law of conservation of mass.

For example:

The balanced equation for the decomposition of potassium chlorate is:

$2{\mathrm{KClO}}_{3\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}\stackrel{∆}{\to }2{\mathrm{KCl}}_{\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}+3{\mathrm{O}}_{2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}$

Therefore, all equations must be balanced to comply with law of conservation of mass.