Chapter 3

Molecules, Moles, and Chemical

Equations

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May
not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Stoichiometry

Based on the Law of Conservation of Mass

(Antoine Lavoisier, 1789)

“We may lay it down as an incontestable

axiom that, in all the operations of art
and nature, nothing is created; an equal
amount of matter exists both before and
after the experiment.
—Antoine Lavoisier

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (1 of 2)
• Chemical formulas provide a concise way to represent
chemical compounds
• A chemical equation builds upon chemical formulas to
concisely represent a chemical reaction

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (2 of 2)

Reactants appear on the left

side of the equation.

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (2 of 2)

Products appear on the right

side of the equation.

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (2 of 2)

CH4(g) + 2O2(g) CO2(g) + 2H2O(g)

The states of the reactants and products are written in
parentheses to the right of each compound.
(g) = gas; (l) = liquid; (s) = solid;
(aq) = in aqueous solution
Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (2 of 2)

Coefficients are inserted to balance the equation to

follow the law of conservation of mass.

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Formulas and Equations (1 of 2)

• Some reactions require an additional symbol placed over the

reaction arrow to specify reaction conditions
• Thermal reactions: Heat (Δ)
• Photochemical reactions: Light (hν)

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Balancing Chemical Equations (4 of 4)

• Pay attention to the following when

balancing chemical equations:
• Do not change species
• Make sure you have the same number of
atoms of each element on both sides

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Exercises: Balance the chemical equation
Join In, 3

When this equation is balanced with the smallest whole number coefficients,
what is the coefficient of oxygen?
C3H7OH  2  CO2  H2O

• 4
• 5
• 6
• 9

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Join In, 3, Answer

• 9

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Aqueous Solutions and Net Ionic Equations

• Reactions that occur in water are said to take place in aqueous solution
• Solution: Homogeneous mixture of two or more substances
• Solvent: Solution component present in greatest amount
• Solute: Solution component present in lesser amount
• The preparation of a solution is a common way to enable two solids to make contact
with one another

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (1 of 7)

• Concentration is a key piece of information for solutions

• Concentration is the relative amounts of solute and solvent
• Solutions are concentrated if many solute particles are present
• Solutions are dilute if few solute particles are present

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (3 of 7)

• Compounds can be characterized by their solubility

• Soluble compounds dissolve readily in water
• Insoluble compounds do not dissolve readily in water
• Solubility can be predicted using solubility rules

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (4 of 7)

Solubility guidelines for soluble salts

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (5 of 7)

Solubility guidelines for soluble salts

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes
Using solubility guidelines, predict whether each of the following
compounds is readily soluble or insoluble in water:

(a) MgBr2
(b) PbI2
(c) (NH4)2CO3
(d) Sr(OH)2
(e) ZnSO4

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (6 of 7)

• Electrolytes are soluble compounds that conduct electricity when dissolved in

water
• Weak electrolytes dissociate partially into ions in solution
• Strong electrolytes dissociate completely into ions in solution
• Nonelectrolytes are substances whose solutions do not conduct electricity
• Essentially all water-soluble ionic compounds (such as NaCl), strong acids, and
strong bases are strong electrolytes.
• Examples of weak electrolytes are water-insoluble ionic compounds, weak acids
and weak bases.
• Examples of nonelectrolytes are covalent compounds like table sugar (C12H22O11)

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Solutions, Solvents, and Solutes (7 of 7)

• Sugar, a nonelectrolyte, does not conduct electricity when dissolved in water

• Acetic acid, a weak electrolyte, weakly conducts electricity when dissolved in
water
• Potassium chromate, a strong electrolyte, strongly conducts electricity when
dissolved in water

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Equations for Aqueous Reactions (2 of 5)

• Dissociation reaction occurs when soluble ionic salts/compounds dissolve

in water and break into their constituent ions
• These compounds conduct electricity and are electrolytes

 Na  (aq) + Cl (aq)

NaCl (s) 

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Equations for Aqueous Reactions (1 of 5)

• When a covalently-bonded material dissolves in water and the molecules

remain intact, they do not conduct electricity
• These compounds are nonelectrolytes

C6H12O6 (s) 
 C6H12O6 (aq)
• The water molecules are not shown explicitly, although their presence is
indicated by the “(aq)” labels on the product side

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Equations for Aqueous Reactions (3 of 5)

• Aqueous chemical reactions can be written as a molecular equation, which

shows the complete formula for each compounds.

Because Pb(NO3)2, KI, and KNO3 are all water-soluble ionic compounds and
therefore strong electrolytes, we can write the equation in a form that indicates
which species exist as ions in the solution.

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chemical Equations for Aqueous Reactions (3 of 5)

Notice that K+(aq) and NO3-(aq) appear on both sides.

Ions that appear in identical forms on both sides of a complete ionic
equation, called spectator ions, play no direct role in the reaction. When
spectator ions are omitted from the equation, we are left with the net ionic
equation, which is one that includes only the ions and molecules directly
involved in the reaction:

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Acid–Base Reactions (1 of 6)

• Acids are substances that donate/lose Hydrogen ion ( H or HO3  ion)s

• They dissolve in water to produce H or H3O ions
• Examples: HCl, HNO3, H3PO4, HCN

• Bases are substances that accept/gains Hydrogen ion ( H or HO3  io)ns

• They dissolve in water to produce OH– ions
• Examples: NaOH, Ca(OH)2, NH3

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Acid–Base Reactions (2 of 6)

• Strong acids and strong bases completely dissociate in water

 H3O (aq)  Cl (aq)

HCl(g)  H2O() 
 Na  (aq)  OH (aq)
NaOH(s) 

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Acid–Base Reactions (3 of 6)

All common strong acids and bases

Strong Acids Strong Acids Strong Bases Strong Bases

HCl Hydrochloric acid LiOH Lithium hydroxide
HNO3 Nitric acid NaOH Sodium hydroxide
H2SO4 Sulfuric acid KOH Potassium hydroxide
HClO4 Perchloric acid Ca(OH)2 Calcium hydroxide
HBr Hydrobromic acid Ba(OH)2 Barium hydroxide
HI Hydroiodic acid Sr(OH)2 Strontium hydroxide

Brown/Holme, Chemistry For Engineering Students, 4 th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not
be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.