
Why can’t the oxygen just be written as a single O instead of O2? Then that would solve the issue. Now if you look closely, the above equation is not balanced. Why? Because the left hand side has two oxygen atoms, but the right hand side only has one.Īt this point you may ask. For example:Īs we learnt above, we know that the chemical formula for magnesium oxide is MgO because magnesium and oxygen both have a valency of 2 which cancels out.

This is a bit more complex because the equation needs to balance.Ī balanced equation means that there are the same number of each type of atom on both sides of the chemical equation. Atoms and compounds are represented by their symbols.
CHEMISTRY CALCULATOR STOICHIOMETRY HOW TO
You need to know how to write both word equations and symbol equations. All chemical reactions can be represented by equations. This skill will be briefly introduced here and developed further throughout the course.

You can figure out the valency of an atom via the periodic table. The valency is the amount of electrons an atom has to gain or lose in order to achieve a full outer shell.

To figure out the chemical formula of a given compound all you need to know are the valencies of the atoms that make the compound.
