Question

How many grams of silver chloride can be produced if you start with $4.62g$ of barium chloride?
$2AgN{O_3}(aq) + BaC{l_2}(aq) \to 2AgCl(s) + Ba{(N{O_3})_2}(aq)$

Answer 1

The reaction of silver nitrate and barium chloride is known as double displacement reaction. Both the cations and anions of the reactants interchange their positions in the products.

Complete step by step answer:
The given reaction is a precipitation reaction. In this reaction the precipitated solid is silver chloride. For the given reaction at first we need a balanced chemical equation.
$2AgN{O_3}(aq) + BaC{l_2}(aq) \to 2AgCl(s) + Ba{(N{O_3})_2}(aq)$
The above reaction of silver nitrate and barium chloride is a balanced chemical equation. The balanced chemical equation indicates that one mole of barium chloride reacts with two moles of silver nitrate to produce two moles of silver chloride and one mole of barium nitrate.
Thus the ratio of barium chloride and silver chloride is $1:2$ mole ratio. Also it is clear that one mole of barium chloride after reaction gives two moles of silver chloride.
Given that the amount of barium chloride used for the reaction is $4.62g$. The molar mass of barium chloride is $208.23g/mol$. Thus the number of moles of barium chloride used in the reaction is
$= \dfrac{{4.62g}}{{208.23g/mol}} = 0.022moles$.
Thus the moles of silver chloride = $2 \times$ moles of barium chloride
$= 2 \times 0.022 = {\text{ }}0.044{\text{ }}moles$.
The molar mass of silver chloride is $143.32g/mol$. So the amount of silver chloride produced in the reaction is
$= moles{\text{ }}of{\text{ }}silver{\text{ }}chloride \times molar{\text{ }}mass{\text{ }}of{\text{ }}silver{\text{ }}chloride$
$= 0.044moles \times 143.32g/mol = 6.31g$.

Hence $6.31g$ of silver chloride can be produced if you start with $4.62g$ of barium chloride.

Note: Such type of precipitation reaction is used in inorganic quantitative analysis for the detection of cation and anion radicals. The precipitate forms due to the solubility product of silver chloride is higher than barium chloride.