QUESTION IMAGE
Question
gallium, ga, reacts with chlorine gas to produce gallium(iii) chloride. when the equation for the reaction is balanced with lowest whole - number coefficients, the coefficient for gallium is
a 1
b 2
c 3
d 4
Step1: Write the unbalanced equation
Gallium (\(Ga\)) reacts with chlorine gas (\(Cl_2\)) to produce gallium(III) chloride (\(GaCl_3\)). The unbalanced equation is \(Ga + Cl_2
ightarrow GaCl_3\).
Step2: Balance the chlorine atoms
There are \(2\) chlorine atoms on the left - hand side (\(Cl_2\)) and \(3\) chlorine atoms on the right - hand side (\(GaCl_3\)). The least common multiple of \(2\) and \(3\) is \(6\). So, we give \(Cl_2\) a coefficient of \(3\) (\(3Cl_2\) gives \(6\) \(Cl\) atoms) and \(GaCl_3\) a coefficient of \(2\) (\(2GaCl_3\) also gives \(6\) \(Cl\) atoms). The equation becomes \(Ga+3Cl_2
ightarrow 2GaCl_3\).
Step3: Balance the gallium atoms
Now, for the gallium (\(Ga\)) atoms, since there are \(2\) \(Ga\) atoms on the right - hand side (\(2GaCl_3\)), we give \(Ga\) a coefficient of \(2\). The balanced equation is \(2Ga + 3Cl_2=2GaCl_3\).
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B. 2