Question

Write the balanced chemical equation for the following reaction:

An equation to illustrate the reducing nature of Ammonia.

Answer 1

Reducing agents: Reducing agents are those agents or compounds that themselves undergo oxidation but reduce the other species in a chemical reaction.

• Ammonia is a reducing agent.
• Ammonia reduces the Copper oxide to Copper metal and itself gets oxidized from Ammonia gas to Nitrogen.

Balanced chemical equation:

$\underset{\mathrm{Ammonia}}{2{\mathrm{NH}}_3\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Copper}\mathrm{oxide}}{3\mathrm{CuO}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}\to \underset{\mathrm{Copper}}{3\mathrm{Cu}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Water}}{3{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\left(\mathrm{l}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Nitrogen}}{{\mathrm{N}}_2\left(\mathrm{g}\right)}$

Hence, in this reaction, Ammonia act as a reducing agent.