1) A common experiment to determine the relative reactivity of metallic elements is to place a pure sample of one metal into an
aqueous solution of a compound of another metallic element. If the pure metal you are adding is more reactive than the metallic element in the compound, then the pure metal will replacethe metallic element in the compound. For example, if you place a piece of pure zinc metal into a solution of copper(II) sulfate, the zinc will slowly dissolve to produce zinc(II) sulfate solution, and the copper(II) ion of the copper(II) sulfate will be converted to metallic copper. Write the unbalanced equation for this process. (Include states-of-matter under the given conditions in your answer.)
Single replacement reaction is a chemical reaction in which more reactive element displaces the less reactive element from its salt solution.
As zinc is more reactive than copper, it could easily displace copper from its aqueous solution and thus leads to formation of zinc (II) sulfate and pure copper.
The chemical reaction can be represented as :
The phases are represented as (s) for solid sate, (l) for liquid state, (g) for gaseous state and (aq) for aqueous state.
Metal zinc reacts with a solution of copper (II) sulfate to produce aqueous zinc sulfate and metallic copper. This is a displacement reaction according to the following molecular equation.
Zn(s) + CuSO₄(aq) ⇄ ZnSO₄(aq) + Cu(s)
Zinc is more reactive than copper, so that the latter is displaced from its salt. Since SO₄²⁻ is a spectator ion, we can write the net ionic equation as follows.
