Question

Balance the equation: ___HgO → ___O2 + ___Hg

Answer 1

Answer:

The balanced chemical equation is :

$2HgO \rightarrow O_2 +2Hg$

Explanation:

Law of conservation of mass states that mass can neither be created nor be destroyed but it can only be transformed from one form to another form.

This also means that total mass on the reactant side must be equal to the total mass on the product side.

$HgO \rightarrow O_2 +Hg$

While balancing the the chemical equation , balance the metal atom first and then in the last balance oxygen atoms.

here in the equation metal atom already balanced, So write 2 in front of HgO in the equation to balance the oxygen atom.

$2HgO \rightarrow O_2 +Hg$

As we can see that metal atom is now not balanced, so write 2 in front of Hg in the reaction.

The balanced chemical equation is :

$2HgO \rightarrow O_2 +2Hg$

Answer 2

Hi!

The balanced equation would be: 2HgO → O2 + 2Hg

Explanation:

For an equation to be balanced, it must have the same quantity of all elements on both sides of the equation. So if there is 2 Hg and 2 O atoms at the left side of the equation, it must have 2 Hg and 2 O atoms on the right hand side as well. For balanced equations, we usually go for the simplest balanced equation with the given information, meaning that though we can use variants like

4HgO → 2O2 + 4Hg and 6HgO → 3O2 + 6Hg

We prefer the simplest form of it unless otherwise specified.

Hope this helps!