Write balanced equations for the formation of the following compounds from their elements.
(c) Uranium hexafluoride (a solid at 25 °C)

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Accepted Answer

All right. Hi everyone. So this question says that to produce sodium metal, its chloride can be reduced using calcium metal at 900 °C. During this reaction, calcium chloride is also produced at this temperature. The metals and chlorides remained in the solid state provide the balanced equation for the reaction. So in this case, right, the nice thing about this question is that we're actually given hints as to what starting materials or reactants and what products are being formed, right? So on the screen here, I drew the arrow to separate the react side and the product side. So here, the first part of the first sentence states that this reaction is intended to produce sodium metal. Therefore, right, sodium metal should be one of my products in the reaction. And it's worth noting that in this case or for this reaction, all metals and chlorides are going to be solid. So my sodium metal on my product side should be a solid. Now, the second sentence actually identifies my other product because in the second sentence, it says that calcium chloride is also produced. So in this case, on my product side, I should have an ionic compound containing both calcium and chloride. However, recall that ionic compounds should be neutral overall, right? So the charges from the cat ion should balance out the charge of the anion. So in the case of calcium chloride, right, calcium has a positive two charge, whereas chloride has a charge of negative too or excuse me, negative one. So to balance out the positive two charge and the negative one charge, I'm going to need two ions of chloride. Meaning my formula for calcium chloride is C AC L two and that is also going to be a solid. So now let's discuss the react in site because the first sentence mentions that the chloride of sodium is reduced in the given reaction using calcium metal. So the first reactant is elemental calcium as a solid and then we have the chloride of sodium. So that's sodium metal combining with chloride. And in this case, sodium has a charge of positive one. Whereas chloride has a charge of negative one though there should be a 1 to 1 ratio of sodium ion to chloride. And like I said, previously, everything is going to be a solid in this case. So now our molecular formula states that calcium metal and sodium chloride combine to form calcium chloride and sodium metal, but we cannot stop at this point, right? Because recall that we have to make sure that the equation is balanced, meaning that we have to have the same quantities of each atom on either side of the reaction, right, on both the products and the reacted side. So if I consider the number of each atom that I have on either side, what ill notice is that I have one chloride or one atom of chlorine on the react side and two atoms of chlorine on the product side. So to balance out this discrepancy, I have to add a coefficient of two in front of sodium chloride because that means that I have two atoms of chlorine on both sides of my reaction. However, by doing this, I now have two atoms of sodium on the left side and one atom of sodium on the right side. Which means that here in this case, I am going to add a coefficient of two in front of sodium metal on the right side because that once again is going to balance out the amount of sodium atoms that I have on either side of my air and calcium remains balanced, right? Because I have one atom of calcium on the left and one atom of calcium on the right. So there you have it here is the final balance equation for this reaction, right? One equivalent of calcium metal combines with two equivalents of sodium chloride to produce one equivalent of calcium chloride and two equivalents of sodium metal. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching. And I hope you found this helpful

Write balanced equations for the formation of the following compounds from their elements. (c) Uranium hexafluoride (a solid at 25 °C)

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Key Concepts

Chemical Equations

Formation Reactions

Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6)