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Chemical Equations: Symbolic Representations Of Chemical Reactions Essay

Chemical equations are the symbolic representations of chemical reactions that are made up of reactants and products. It is made up of the chemical formulas of the reactants and the chemical formula of the products. The reactants are the substances or chemicals that takes part in during a reaction and the products are the chemicals are the substances that result from the chemical reaction. Reactants are on the left side of the chemical equation and the products are on the right side of the chemical equation.

They are both separated by an arrow, that simply means “yield”. This arrow has the general purpose to show action between the products and the reactants. It is also supposed to represent a net forward reaction, meaning there is a complete ionization of the reactants. Another symbol that is shown in the chemical equations are the physical states of every chemical in the chemical equation. There is (s) which represents a solid, (I) which represents a liquid, (g), which represents a gas, and (aq) which represents an aqueous solution.

There is also delta (A), which is supposed to show the amount of energy that is in a chemical reaction. The first chemical equation was explained by Jean Beguin in 1615. He was an iatrochemist who contributed methods which helped generate today’s modern science of chemistry. Iatrochemistry is the study of both chemistry and medicine that was an early form of pharmacology, which was influenced by the learning of pharmacology. It was accomplished in the 16th and 17th centuries by mostly the famous Paracelsus.

This study sought to address the balance of the bodily fluids which compromise the four humors. Jean Beguin also published the first chemical textbook, which was called Tyrocinium Chymicum (Beginner’s Chemistry). He was the one who defined chemistry as the discovery for certain medications, which is similar to today’s chemistry because it to him was practical and experimental, with little theory. In 1718, French chemist Etienne Geoffroy made the first affinity table, which was centered on Isaac Newton’s “Query 31′.

An affinity table is an arrangements of chemical species that the species at the head of each column has a chemical attraction and the capability to mix by a chemical reaction, with each species listed directly below, with each potential reactant listed in order of decreasing force of affinity to the header species, which helps the chemist to predict the course of react. Chemist William Cullen founded the usage of the arrow to display the elective affinity preference, otherwise known as affinity force, of the reacting substances.

He also used the crochet to display the substances were united and connected. In 1775, Torbern Bergman created the “Bergman’s affinity table” which was pretty much an expanded version of Etiene Geoffroy’s old affinity table. Then, not that long after Bergman’s creation of his affinity table, Antione Lavoisier made a horizontal mathematical stylized representation of a chemical reaction by using ratios and products in order to show the chemical reaction. Later, in 1794 Jeremias Richter, created the term stoichiometry which dealt with the laws that stated substanves unite to form chemical equations.

John Bidlakes created the equal sign that separated the products from the reactants that shows a double decomposition. Then, Walther Nernst advanced the equal sign to a two-way reaction arrow that signifies a reversible reaction in 1884. There are many different chemical reactions but the ones that were specifically used in this particular lab were oxidation-reduction reactions, acid-base reactions, decomposition reactions, precipitation reactions, and complex ion formation reactions. First, reactions one through four, and reaction ten are all oxidation-reduction reactions.

An oxidation-reduction reaction is a type of chemical reaction that deals with the transmission of electrons between two elements. They are collective in life today and are seen throughout life. Photosynthesis, respiration, combustion, and corrosion are all methods of oxidation-reduction reactions because of how there is a transfer of electrons between all of the examples of oxidation-reduction. First, there is the oxidation state of an element, which states how many electrons are in that certain element or chemical. There are two parts in a redox reaction, which are reduction and oxidation.

Reduction is when the product gains electrons, whereas the oxidation is when the certain product loses electrons in the reaction process. The element that receives the electrons, the one that gains electrons, is called the oxidizing agent. The species that donates electrons, the one that loses electrons, is called the reducing agent. There are different types of redox reactions, combination reactions, decomposition reactions, single replacement reactions, double replacement reactions, combustion reactions and disproportionation reactions. Decomposition reactions are chemical reactions that breaks down a substance into two or more substances.

Reactions eight and fifteen are seen as decomposition reactions. Combination reactions are the exact opposite of decomposition reaction because instead of breaking down a substance, it is combining them both together to form a new product or products. Single replacement reactions, otherwise known as a single displacement reaction, is a chemical reaction that one substance is switched for another substance in a compound. A clear example of a single replacement reaction is when starting “with a clear, colorless solution of silver(I) nitrate… drop in some shiny copper wire… and the result is] The solution turns aquamarine blue, and the copper wire starts to look grey and fuzzy” (Single Replacement Reactions Khan Academy).

A double displacement reaction is a type of reaction where two substances, reactants, exchange their ions to form two new products. They usually result in the formation of a product that is a precipitate. This can be also known as a salt metathesis reaction, or a double decomposition reaction. A perfect example of a double displacement reaction is the reaction between silver nitrate and sodium chloride because the nitrite ion switches with the silver to form two totally different products.

Combustion reactions are chemical reactions that always contain the substance oxygen and it results in the products and the release or input of heat because combustion reactions are almost always exothermic. Finally, disproportionation reactions are chemical reactions in which a substance is simultaneously oxidized and reduced, which results in two unique products. Acid-base reactions are when an acid and a base are placed together and they react to neutralize each other to produce a salt. Some acid properties are when dissolved in water acids can conduct electricity, change blue litmus to red, and have a sour taste.

Some base properties are they can conduct electricity, change red litmus to blue, and they tend to have a slippery feeling. Acids have hydrogen ions, whereas bases have hydroxide ions in them. The first person to attempt at the interpretation of acid behavior was AntoineLaurent Lavoisier in the 18th century. He defined acids in terms of their containing oxygen, which he named “acid-former”, which means “acid” or “sharp”. This was held as true for thirty years, but then Sir Humphry Davy developed a new theory, that stated “acidity does not depend upon any particular elementary substance, but upon peculiar arrangement of various substances”.

However, the first modern definition of acids and bases was made by Svante Arrhenius. An Arrhenius acid by definition, is a substance that dissociates in water to form hydrogen ions. A precipitation reaction is a reaction that occurs when cations and anions are in aqueous solutions that combine to form an insoluble solution, which is called a precipitate. A clear example of a precipitation reaction is when “Aqueous silver nitrate (AgNO3) is added to a solution containing potassium chloride (KCI), and the precipitation of a white solid, silver chloride (AgCl), is observed” (Precipitation Reactions).

The precipitation can be utilized to select the existence of numerous ions in dissimilar solutions. Another way to represent a precipitation reaction is as a net ionic equation and in this assured circumstance, spectator ions are left out of the equation completely. Precipitation can happen if the concentration of a compound surpasses its solubility and it also can occur from a supersaturated solution. It can also occur if the concentration of one solid is above the solubility limit in the host solid. Precipitation can even occur when an antisolvent is added, which results in it drastically reducing the solubility of the desired product.

From this, the precipitation can be easily removed by filtration, decanting, or centrifugation. Precipitation is beneficial for creating pigments, eradicating salts from water in water treatment, and in classical qualitative inorganic analysis. It is also useful in determining the sort of cation in a salt. “To do this, an alkali first reacts with the unknown salt to produce a precipitate that is the hydroxide of the unknown salt. To identify the cation, the color of the precipitate and its solubility in excess are noted” (Precipitation (chemistry).

Therefore, reactions five, six, ten, thirteen, sixteen, and seventeen are all precipitation reactions in this particular lab. A complex ion formation is when a metal ion reacts with a complex ion or neutral molecule to form a new single ion that is re of the two reactants. A complex ion is an ion that has a metal ion in its center and nucleus and it has multiple other molecules that form around the ion, which are called ligands. Some instances of common ligands are water, ammonia, and chloride ions and they all are lone pair donors which means that they act like Lewis bases.

Reactions seven and eighteen are both revealed to be complex ion formations. One example of a complex ion formation is “the addition of ammonia to an aqueous solution of the hydrated ion {[Cu(H20)6]2+}”. Complex ion constructions are discovered in medicine and profitable water softeners use a complexing agent to treat hard water by passing the water over ion-exchange resins, otherwise known as complex sodium salt This just goes to show how complex ion formation can actually be found in everyday life situations and problems.

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