This is so awesome! I even understood when I have nothing to do with Chemistry! I got interested and was thinking, what if one of the half reaction’s change of charge is 0? I figured the 8step method does not work in that case. Then we cannot put coefficients to balance it out. Is there an easy step by step way for such a case?
I gotchu, since the MnO4 has a negatice sign “-“ it means that the total charge is -1. Oxygen is -2 charge so -2x4 = -8 Since we know that the charge of the entire atom is -1 Mn has to be +7 because +7 + -8 = -1
Since hydrogen is more electronegative than manganese, how is it that hydrogen seemingly displaces managanese in forming water/ hooking up with oxygen.?. I could be way way off in what's actually taking place. Same thing with iron. It is more electronegative than manganese, so why would it be oxidized and manganese reduced? This is a pretty freaky reaction to me. Does it have to do with the reaction occuring in an acidic solution?
SOMEBODY HELP! @ 0:55 If there isn't the same number of atoms of species that are not O or H like in: N2O4 + Br^- > NO2^- + BrO3^- What do i do??? i tried just multiplying NO2^- times 2 without changing anything else including the difference in oxidation numbers (+4 - +3 = -1), and the other difference of Br being -1 - +5 = -6, i ended up having to multiply the reduction half reaction by 6, so 6N2O4 and 6(2NO2^-) = 12NO^-, but eventually the charges on the two sides did not match taking into account the protons and all
If you mean the oxidation number then you'll have to find the oxidation number of each molecule. First you'll have to learn how to find out oxidation number then you can balance chemical equations using his method .