CHEMICAL REACTIONS AND EQUATIONS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
When a chemical change happens, chemical composition of a matter changes and a new product is formed. Whenever a chemical change occurs, we can say that a chemical reaction take place.
In the above picture we can observe that A react with B and produce a new product AB.
A+B—> AB
substances that take part in reaction are called REACTANTS and the new substances produced as the result of reaction are called PRODUCTS.
Magnesium + Oxygen——> magnesium oxide
Reactants— magnesium and oxygen
Product. — magnesium oxide
CHEMICAL EQUATIONS
A chemical reaction can be expressed symbolically using chemical equations
eg: magnesium burns in air to form magnesium oxide can be represented as
Mg + O₂−−>MgO
(where magnesium and oxygen are reactants and magnesium oxide is the product)
The physical state of reactants and products is mentioned to make chemical reactions more informative. To represent solid we use (s) for liquid (l) for gas (g) and for aqueous (aq )(REACTANTS are written on the left-hand side(LHS) with a +sign between them and PRODUCT are written on the right-hand side(RHS) and an arrow is placed between them)
Mg(s) + O₂(g)−−>MgO(s)