Quote (hsloushe @ Mar 8 2015 10:48pm)
C8H18 + O2 > Co2 + H2O
You have to balance it so there are the same amount of molecules on each side.
2C8H18 + 25O2 > 16Co2 + 18H2O
So, if you have 2 molecules of octane(C8H18), that means you will need 16 atoms of Carbon and 36 atoms of Hydrogen on the other side, that is necessary. All that's left after that is oxygen, and you have an unlimited supply of that(assuming). So if you have 16 atoms of Carbon, that can make 16 molecules of Co2, since it only needs one atom per, which means you will need 32 atoms of oxygen, to complete the molecule, which we will come back to in a second. If you have 36 atoms of Hydrogen, then you can make 18 molecules of H2O, since you need 2 atoms per molecule, but you will also need 18 atoms of oxygen to complete the atom.
So, in total you will need 50 oxygen atoms, this is where we go back to the first side of the equation and plug that in, which gives us 25 molecules of O2. There needs to be 2 molecules of octane because you need an even number of oxygen for the molecule O2, if you only used one molecule of octane, you would need an odd number of O2 to complete the equation, which you cannot do, therefore.. 2 molecules lol.
i know how to balance btw Hunter