Element-reactant-product table

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An element-reaction-product table is used to find coefficients while balancing an equation representing a chemical reaction. Coefficients represent moles of a substance so that the number of atoms produced is equal to the number of atoms being reacted with. This is the common setup:

The layout should eventually look like this, for a balanced reaction of baking soda and vinegar:

HC2H3O2 + NaHCO3 → NaC2H3O2 + H2CO3
ElementAmount of reactantsAmount of products
Hydrogen 55
Carbon 33
Oxygen 55
Sodium 11

From this, since the number of reactants for each element equals the number of products for each element, we can tell that each side is balanced in the equation.

Balancing

When a reaction equation is not balanced, it needs coefficients to show inequality. Here is an example with the separation of natural gas from hydrochloric acid using magnesium.

Mg + HCl → MgCl2 + H2 (unbalanced)

Here is the element-reaction-product table:

ElementAmount of reactantsAmount of products
Hydrogen 12
Chlorine 12
Magnesium 11

From this table we see that the number of hydrogen and chlorine atoms onh the product's side are twice the number of atoms on the reactant's side. Therefore, we add the coefficient "2" in front of the HCl on the products side, to get our equation to look like this:

Mg + 2 HCl → MgCl2 + H2

and our table looks like this:

ElementAmount of reactantsAmount of products
Hydrogen 1 22
Chlorine 1 22
Magnesium 11

Because of the coefficients, the equation is balanced.

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