Question

Write down the balanced chemical equation:

Aluminium plus chlorine produces aluminium chloride

Answer 1

Balanced chemical equation: A chemical equation in which the number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation is equal is called a balanced chemical equation.

Step 1: Representation of the chemical reaction:

• Aluminium reacts with chlorine to produce aluminium chloride.
• The chemical reaction can be written as:

$\underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}}{\mathrm{Al}}+\underset{\mathrm{Chlorine}}{{\mathrm{Cl}}_2}\to \underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}\mathrm{chloride}}{{\mathrm{AlCl}}_3}$

Step 2: Calculating the number of atoms on both sides of the reaction:

Elements	Number of atoms on the reactant side	Number of atoms on the product side
Al	1	1
Cl	2	3

Step 3: Balancing the uneven number of atoms on the reactants and products side:

1. As the number of atoms on the reactants and products side is different, so so balancing of aluminium and chlorine can be done by multiplying the required coefficient for them in the reaction.
2. This is done by multiplying 2 to aluminium and 3 to chlorine on the reactant side and also 2 to aluminium chloride on the product side, to make the two sides equal.

$\underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}}{2\mathrm{Al}}+\underset{\mathrm{Chlorine}}{3{\mathrm{Cl}}_2}\to \underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}\mathrm{chloride}}{2{\mathrm{AlCl}}_3}$

Elements	Number of atoms on the reactant side	Number of atoms on the product side
Al	2	2
Cl	6	6

Now, we can see that the balanced equation is:

$\underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}}{2\mathrm{Al}}+\underset{\mathrm{Chlorine}}{3{\mathrm{Cl}}_2}\to \underset{\mathrm{Aluminium}\mathrm{chloride}}{2{\mathrm{AlCl}}_3}$