Question

Differentiate between: Reactants and products.

Answer 1

To differentiate between reactants and products, first we need to understand the concept of a chemical equation. We can define a chemical equation as a symbolic representation of a chemical reaction in the form of symbols and formula. In which the reactant entities are given on the left-hand side and the product entities are given on the right-hand side.

Complete step by step answer:
As we know that the method of representing a chemical reaction with the help of symbols and formulae of the substances involved in it is known as chemical equation. For example, when zinc metal reacts with dilute sulfuric acid then it forms zinc sulfate and hydrogen gas.
Also, when zinc and sulfur react then it forms zinc sulfide. The reaction involved in this is:
$Zn + S \to ZnS$
From this reaction, we get to know that the substances on the left hand side of the arrow in a chemical equation are called reactants. A reactant is a substance that is present at the beginning of a chemical reaction. And the substances to the right hand side of the arrow are called products. A product is a substance that is present at the end of a chemical reaction. Here, the zinc and sulfur are the reactants that can be chemically combined to form the zinc sulfide product.
We can write it as reactants $\to$ products.

Note: We need to keep in mind that there is always a standard way of writing chemical equations. The reactants are all written on the left-hand side of the equation and the products are on the right-hand side. An arrow points from the reactants to the products which indicate the direction of the chemical reaction. As we know that based on the law of conservation of mass, matter could not be created or destroyed. So, the mass of the products in a chemical reaction is the same as the mass of the reactants. The aim of balancing chemical equations is to contain the equal number of each kind of element on each side of a chemical equation. Balancing chemical equations also helps to obtain the stoichiometric relationship between the substances/elements/compounds.