# How can a chemical equation be made more informative?

##### 1 Answer
Aug 1, 2018

Well, what do you want us to say..?

#### Explanation:

Clearly a chemical equation SHOULD be balanced with respect to mass and charge. This is an unspoken necessity...

Combustion reactions of hydrocarbons provide good examples to demonstrate such stoichiometry. For instance, the combustion of ethane...

${\underbrace{{H}_{3} C - C {H}_{3} \left(g\right) + \frac{7}{2} {O}_{2} \left(g\right) \rightarrow 2 C {O}_{2} \left(g\right) \uparrow + 3 {H}_{2} O \left(l\right)}}_{\text{142.6 g of reactant GIVE 142.6 g of product}}$

The physical states of each reagent are included. Is this balanced with respect to mass and charge.... ? And certainly this is ALSO balanced with respect to enthalpy...an enthalpy term COULD be included in the reaction...

For redox reactions, the conservation of mass and charge is even more explicit, given that we introduce electrons as virtual particles of convenience...

${\underbrace{C {r}_{2} {O}_{7}^{2 -} + 14 {H}^{+} + 6 {e}^{-} \rightarrow 2 C {r}^{3 +} + 7 {H}_{2} O \left(l\right)}}_{\text{orange to green}}$

The states of each reagent are assumed to be aqueous, i.e. $\left(a q\right)$.