If we want to make 2 water molecules, we will need 4 hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms. In doing so, we will increase our understanding of stoichiometry, which is the study of the numerical relationships between the reactants and the products in a balanced chemical reaction.įigure 6.1 “Water Molecules” shows that we need 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom to make 1 water molecule. How do we compare amounts of substances to each other in chemical terms when it is so difficult to count to a hundred billion billion?Īctually, there are ways to do this, which we will explore in this chapter. Even a tiny sample of a substance will contain millions, billions, or a hundred billion billions of atoms and molecules.
Although this works, most of the reactions occurring around us involve much larger amounts of chemicals. So far, we have talked about chemical reactions in terms of individual atoms and molecules. 6.1: Chapter Introduction 6.2: The Mole 6.3: Atomic and Molar Mass 6.4: Mole-Mass Conversions 6.5: Mole-Mole Relationships in Chemical Reactions 6.6: Mole-Mass and Mass-Mass Problems 6.7: Chapter Summary 6.8: References This text is published under creative commons licensing, for referencing and adaptation, please click here. Chapter 6 – Quantities in Chemical Reactions