Question

What is a balanced chemical equation? Why should chemical equations be balanced?

Answer 1

A reaction which has an equal number of atoms of all the elements on both sides of the chemical equation is called a balanced chemical equation.

Chemical equations must be balanced because every chemical equation adheres to the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

In other words, formation of products involves rearrangement of atoms of the elements, hence, the mass of the reactants must be equal to the total mass of the products.