Question

Nitroglycerin is a dangerous powerful explosive that violently decomposes when it is shaken or dropped. The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) founded the Nobel Prizes with a fortune he made by inventing dynamite, a mixture of nitroglycerin and inert ingredients that was safe to handle.
Write a balanced chemical equation, induding physical state symbols, for the decomposition of liquid nitroglycerin into gaseous dinitrogen, gaseous dloxygen, gaseous water and gaseous carbon dioxide.

Answer 1

Answer: The balanced chemical equation for the decomposition of nitroglycerin is written below.

Explanation:

Decomposition reaction is defined as the reaction in which a single large substance breaks down into two or more smaller substances.

Every balanced chemical equation follows law of conservation of mass.

A balanced chemical equation is defined as the equation in which total number of individual atoms on the reactant side is equal to the total number of individual atoms on product side.

The balanced chemical equation for the decomposition of nitroglycerin follows:

$4C_3H_5N_3O_9(l)\rightarrow 12CO_2(g)+10H_2O(g)+6N_2(g)+O_2(g)$

By Stoichiometry of the reaction:

1 mole of liquid nitroglycerin decomposes into 12 moles of carbon dioxide gas, 10 moles of gaseous water, 6 moles of dinitrogen gas and 1 mole of dioxygen gas.

Hence, the balanced chemical equation for the decomposition of nitroglycerin is written above.