Hey guys wat's up, I am really confused about how to go from a word equation to a chemical equation like the one bellow can any help me out:

Chromium reacts with oxygen to produce Chromium (II) Oxide.

Can anyone help me determine the chemical equation for this.

Thanks:cool:

It's easy. Just put down the reactants in their symbol form. But pay special attention to molecules as you have to put the number of atoms in a molecule. Then an arrow is used to show that a reaction took place and products are formed. You have surely learned how to do the formulae of compounds, that is for chromium(II) oxide.

Take your equation above:

Chromium + oxygen ---> Chromium(II) Oxide (Word Equation)

Cr + O2 ----> CrO (Chemical Equation)

Given chromium has valency 2, as does oxygen, the formula for chromium oxide is CrO. Note that the 2 after O is subscript.

Now for balancing it, that is to have equal number of atoms on both hand sides:

2Cr + O2 ----> 2CrO

As you can see, there are 2 chromium atoms on the LHS (left hand side)and the RHS(right hand side). The number of oxygen also is the same on both hand sides. Note that the number in front of the chemicals multiply the whole chemical by this number.

For more info, just ask.