Question

Balance the chemical equation: $FeS{O_4} \to F{e_2}{O_3} + S{O_2} + S{O_3}$

Answer 1

The balancing of a chemical equation is the process by which the number of atoms of each element are made equal on the reactant and the product by putting stoichiometric coefficients in front of the formula of different compounds and elements.

Complete answer:
Reactions in chemistry follow a certain set of rules known as the laws of chemical composition. One such law is the law of conservation of energy which tells us that mass can neither be conserved nor destroyed i.e. the total mass of the reactants must always be equal to the total mass of products.
Since the masses of elements are fixed, the number of atoms of each element on the reactant side must be the same as that on the product side.
In order to satisfy this rule chemical equations are balanced by putting stoichiometric coefficients in front of the formula of different compounds and elements.
We first start by balancing the number of sulphur atoms, the total number of sulphur atoms on the reactant side is one and that on the product side is two. Since there is a single reactant, it is multiplied by a stoichiometric number of two in order to make the sulphur atoms equal on both sides.
As a result, the iron atoms and the oxygen atoms automatically become balanced. There are two iron atoms and eight oxygen atoms on both sides of the equation.
$\Rightarrow$ Thus the balanced chemical equation can be written as follows:
$2FeS{O_4} \to F{e_2}{O_3} + S{O_2} + S{O_3}$

Note:
The stoichiometric numbers actually represent the moles of each reactant that must react to give a specific amount of products. The stoichiometric numbers are usually taken to be whole numbers but in some cases fractions are also used to balance chemical equations.