Question

How to balance the equation by shortcut method?

Answer 1

Shortcut method to balance the chemical equation:

• Firstly, write down the unbalanced equation to show the reactants and products.
• Then, write down how many atoms of each element there are on each side of the reaction arrow.
• After that, we need to add coefficients on the sides required, so the number of atoms of each element is the same on both sides of the equation.

Example:

• Let us consider an unbalanced equation:$\underset{\mathrm{Iron}}{\mathrm{Fe}}+\underset{\mathrm{Oxygen}}{{\mathrm{O}}_2}\to \underset{\mathrm{Ferric}\mathrm{oxide}}{{\mathrm{Fe}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3}$.
• The number of atoms of each element present on both reactant as well as product side is given by:

Atom	Reactant side	Product side
Fe	1	2
O	2	3

• By adding coefficient 4 beside Fe; 3 beside O on the reactant side and 2 on the product side, we can balance the whole equation as follows; $\underset{\mathrm{Iron}}{4\mathrm{Fe}}+\underset{\mathrm{Oxygen}}{3{\mathrm{O}}_2}\to \underset{\mathrm{Ferric}\mathrm{oxide}}{2{\mathrm{Fe}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3}$.

Hence, by applying the above-mentioned steps we can easily balance any unbalanced chemical equation.