Answer:
Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen only will be present in the substances that are created when ethanol burns.
Explanation:
Combustion means the process by which the burning of any substance, whether gaseous, liquid or solid, occurs.
Combustion reactions are reactions where oxygen intervenes as a reagent. Oxygen has the ability to combine with various elements to produce oxides, where then oxidation is the combination of oxygen with another substance. There are oxidations that are extremely slow, but when oxidation is rapid it is called combustion.
When a substance containing carbon and hydrogen (a hydrocarbon) undergoes complete combustion, or burning, oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide is produced, and water.
Then the reaction is:
C₂H₆O + O₂ ⇒ CO₂ + H₂O
The law of conservation of matter states that since no atom can be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction, the number of atoms that are present in the reagents has to be equal to the number of atoms present in the products.
Then, you must balance the chemical equation. For that, you must first look at the subscripts next to each atom to find the number of atoms in the equation. If the same atom appears in more than one molecule, you must add its amounts
.
The coefficients located in front of each molecule indicate the amount of each molecule for the reaction. This coefficient can be modified to balance the equation, just as you should never alter the subscripts.
And by multiplying the coefficient mentioned by the subscript, you get the amount of each element present in the reaction.
So, considering the above, the balanced chemical equation is:
2 C₂H₆O + 6 O₂ ⇒ 6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O
In the previous combustion reaction you can see that:
- Elements in the reactants: C, H, O
Elements in the products : C, H, O
You can see that in a chemical reaction the elements in the reagents must be the same elements present in the products.
So, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen only will be present in the substances that are created when ethanol burns.
