EOUBAL-A
Computer Program for Balancing Chemical Equations
The conservation conditions for atoms and charge lead to a set of homogeneous linear equations which may be solved to yield the coefficients necessary to balance any chemical equation. Computer programs based on this fact have been described'>, but they suffer from limitations in either the number or type of reagents which can be included. EQUBAL is an interactive Fortran IV program to balance any chemical equation. The user need only input the chemical formulas of the reactants and products. No distinction need be made between reactants and produets since the coefficients of all reactants will he negative while those of the products will be positive. If the chemical species input cannot he combined to yield a valid chemical equation an appropriate error message is printed. The program will identify and correctly treat thmerare reactions for which there is no unique balanced equation3. A listing of the program is available an request.
Brown,J. P., Brown, L. P., and Redd, R. M., J. CHEM. EDUC., 49,754 (1972). Rosen, A. I., J. CHEM. W C . , 54,704 (1977) 3 A common example of this situation is the reaction 2MnO45H202 6H+ 2Mn2+ 502 8H20. The lack of a unique solution results from the fact that in principle the reaction 2H202 2H20 Oz is a subreaction. Since the disproportionation is slow compared to the redox reaction under normal conditions the 215 stoichiametry for Mn04-lH2Oz is observed. 1
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Stephen 2.Goldberg Adelphi University Garden City, New York 11530
532 1 Journal of Chemical Education
