Back to some Basics (Naming and Balancing)

Good day everyone! Since we're doing hardly more than review today, we'll start off with a joke. A chemist and his dad walk into a bar. "I'll have some H₂O," the chemist says. His father says, "I'll have some H₂O too(2)". The chemist is now planning his father's funeral.

Naming
If you'll remember, all the way back here, we reviewed how to name compounds. For most of you, this should be old-hat. For our new readers, however, we'll do some review.

Ionic compounds, that is, a bonding of a metal and non-metal atom, are named simply by taking the name of the metal (attached with a roman numeral if it has multiple charges), followed by the non-metal element ending in -ide. Depending on the element, you might have to truncate the end, such as carbon→carbide.

Covalent compounds, or compounds formed from the bonds of only non-metal elements, are slightly trickier. The general method is to simply take the two elements and prefix them with the corresponding number of atoms in that compound. As with Ionic compounds, the second element should end in -ide. For example, CO₂ is Carbon Dioxide. To the right is a chart of the common prefixes.

For acids, one must remember only a simple mnemonic. "ate ic ite ous". Say it enough, it'll stick. To make sense of this, find a list of common anions. You'll find many end with "ate" or "ous". When a Hydrogen is attached in front (making it an acid), simply change "ate" to "ic" or "ite" to "ous", and smack on an "acid". If it's just a single element following Hydrogen, name it Hydro[element]ic Acid.


Naming
Now that we've gotten that annoying bit of elementary chemistry out of the way, let move on to...something equally basic. Crap. I mean, let's begin.

The essential part of balancing is just adding coefficients to molecules (or elements) on both sides of a reaction equation to make the number of atoms for each side equal. Below is an example of a balanced equation.

1Zn+2HCl→1PbCl₂+1H₂

Now in class we'll learn techniques for balancing like doing it systematically, looking at the number of atoms and such. These are good skills if you can use them intuitively, otherwise, we at PinchOfKCN offer a less arbitrary method.

This method assumes you can solve systems of equations. If you can't, well, pardon my French, but vis-vous aller apprendre un peu de maths.

For example, we'll use Fe₂O₃+Al  →Al₂O₃+Fe.


We'll break this down a bit.

And now we'll add some coefficient variables in front.
[A]Fe₂O₃  +  [B]Al  →  [C]Al₂O₃  +  [D]Fe


And to balance the equations, we just need to solve this system of equations.

If you're math savvy, you'll know that we have 4 variables and 3 equations, so this is just a bit unsolvable. How do we fix this? Well, let's just substitute a number in.

Since we have fractions, let's just get rid of those nasty denominators.

And voila, fine (pronounced [FEE-nay]).

Just before we say goodbye, let's finish the way we started; with a joke.
Argon walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, we don't serve noble gases here."
...
...
...
Argon doesn't react.

Good day everyone, and I sure hope you know these methods in and out now.