Cherei burns heptene, C7H14. Write a balanced chemical equation for the complete combustion of heptene. In combustion, heptene reacts with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide and water.

Answer 1

The second sentence in this question is unneeded information because the combustion of a hydrocarbon C_xH_2X always produces CO₂ and H₂0. Balancing these equations can get a bit tricky so I'll walk you through how I do it. First we must write the skeleton equation. Then we'll balance the atoms in the following order (C, H, O) and if we need a decimal coefficient to balance the oxygens then we'll double everything to get round numbers.

Skeleton equation = C₇H₁₄ + O₂ -> CO₂ + H₂O

Balanced with decimal = C₇H₁₄ + 10.5O₂ -> 7CO₂ + 7H₂O

Final answer = 2C₇H₁₄ + 21O₂ -> 14CO₂ + 14H₂O