What does the symbol #Delta# in a chemical equation mean?
1 Answer
It means heat. So you could put something on a hot plate, crank up the temperature... then you'd be carrying out the action indicated by
So you might see something like:
#"NH"_4"NO"_3 stackrel(Delta" ")(->) 2"H"_2"O" + "N"_2"O"#
That would be the decomposition of ammonium nitrate into water and nitrous oxide. The
Another example is the radical halogenation of alkanes:
#"CH"_4 + "Cl"_2 stackrel(Delta" ""or " hnu" ")(->) "CH"_3"Cl" + "HCl"#
In this case,