Question

Translate the following statements into chemical equations and balance them. Potassium metal reacts with water to give potassium hydroxide and Hydrogen gas.

Answer 1

Balanced chemical equation

• Chemical reactions, in which reactants combine to form products, are represented by chemical equations.
• Stoichiometric coefficients are added to the reactants and products to balance chemical equations.
• It's significant because the principles of mass conservation and constant proportions require a chemical equation to be applied.
• When the law of conservation of mass is applied to a chemical, neither an atom is generated nor destroyed on either side of the reaction, resulting in an equal number of elements in both the reactant and the product.

Chemical reaction

• When Potassium $\left(\mathrm{K}\right)$ metal and water $\left({\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\right)$ react, Potassium hydroxide $\left(\mathrm{KOH}\right)$ and hydrogen gas $\left({\mathrm{H}}_2\right)$ are produced.
• The chemical equation is as follows:

$\mathrm{K}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)+{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\left(\mathrm{l}\right)\to \mathrm{KOH}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)\hspace{0.17em}+{\mathrm{H}}_2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)$

Balancing the chemical equation

• The number of hydrogen $\left(\mathrm{H}\right)$ atoms is $2$ on the reactant side but $3$ on the product side.
• Add $2$ in front of $\mathrm{K}$, ${\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$ and $\mathrm{KOH}$ in order to balance the chemical equation.
• The balanced equation is as follows:

$2\mathrm{K}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)\hspace{0.17em}+2{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\left(\mathrm{l}\right)\to 2\mathrm{KOH}\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)+{\mathrm{H}}_2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)$