____ CH4 + ___O2 → _____CO2 + __ H2O

Answer 1

CH₄ + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O

We will balance the chemical equation by making sure there is a same number of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms on both sides.

1 - Carbon 1 - Carbon

4 - Hydrogen 2 - Hydrogen

2 - Oxygen 3 - Oxygen

1.) Balance hydrogen: Put 2 as a coefficient in front of the water molecule.

CH₄ + O₂ → CO₂ + 2 H₂O

1 - Carbon 1 - Carbon

4 - Hydrogen 4 - Hydrogen

2 - Oxygen 4 - Oxygen

2.) Balance oxygen: Put 2 as a coefficient in front of the oxygen gas.

CH₄ + 2 O₂ → CO₂ + 2 H₂O

1 - Carbon 1 - Carbon

4 - Hydrogen 4 - Hydrogen

4 - Oxygen 4 - Oxygen

Note: The invisible "1" is used as a coefficient in front of methane and carbon dioxide in the chemical equation.

Answer 2

Hi Sahaudiya J.,

Based on the question above, I can see a chemical balancing problem. The first step would be to count all the atoms on each side. An example would be the left side of the equation. You have 1xCarbon Atom paired with 4xHydrogen Atoms while adding a diatomic molecule (O2) with 2xOxygen Atoms. Each number refers to how many atoms you have in that compound; associated with its element.

Next, take a look at the right side of the equation. You can see that you again have 1xCarbon Atom, but now you only have 2xHydrogen Atoms and 3xOxygen Atoms.

The best approach to this problem would be to locate the compound with the highest abundance available. As you can see, there are 4xHydrgoen atoms on the left side and only 2xHYdrogen atoms on the right side. The right side has the least amount of Hydrogen. There must exist a factor of 4 that you can balance the same amount of Hydrogen atoms on both sides of the equation. Well, if you add a "2" on the right side of the equation, in front of H2O (water), you should see that you have 4xHydrogen Atoms on the right while the left also has the same.

Now that you have added a 2 in front of the water, you can see that you also have 4xOxygen Atoms on the right side. 2xOxygen already existed from the CO2, but when you added the number 2 coefficient in front of the water, you now have 2(H2O), so you need to find a factor of 4 that can balance the left side of the equation. The left side has the least amount of Oxygen. The number 2 is again another factor of 4, so if you add a 2 in front of the oxygen and count how many oxygen atoms you have, you will see that there is a balance of 4xOxygen Atoms on both sides of the equation.

Last but not least, you are left with Carbon. In this equation, you never had to add another carbon on either side so you keep any compound that has carbon with a coefficient of 1. So your balanced equation should come to be:

_1_ CH4 + _2_ O2 --> _1_ CO2 + _2_H2O