yet another balancing reaction question

[qkchen]

hi guys,

i have to trouble you with yet another redox balancing question:

K2Cr2O7 + HCl --> KCl + CrCl3 + (1 molecule water) + Cl2


i can balance the straightforward looking ones but this one has too many things going on. i was wondering if anyone would be kind enough once again to provide some step-by-step process to tackle these more complex redox reactions. thank you!

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[DrRoyal Pains]

I believe this is the correct answer. Someone correct me if I am wrong:

K2Cr2O7 + 14 HCl --------------→ 2 KCl + 2 CrCl3 + 7 H20 + 3 Cl2

The trick is to pick something (Cl for example), and balance that. Then build your way up to the others (at least that is how I do it).

 

[qkchen]

yes, that is the correct answer.

did you balance this by using two redox reactions (reduction and oxidation)?

I believe this is the correct answer. Someone correct me if I am wrong:

K2Cr2O7 + 14 HCl --------------→ 2 KCl + 2 CrCl3 + 7 H20 + 3 Cl2

The trick is to pick something (Cl for example), and balance that. Then build your way up to the others (at least that is how I do it).

 

[DrRoyal Pains]

Nope. I just played around with it. I pick something and try to balance that first. Then once that is balanced, something else is likely to become unbalanced. Then I balance that, so on and so forth. Its helpful to write out the entire reaction, then write the numbers above the reaction that way incase you make a mistake, you can just scratch the numbers out or erase them instead of writing out the entire reaction again. Did that make sense at all ha? When I took Kaplan thats pretty much the approach I was given. Just keep practicing them and you'll be able to bang these types of problems out in no time.