Balancing Redox Equations in Acid
Instructor: Dr. Angela G. King (Department of Chemistry)
Programming & Design: Yue-Ling Wong (Department of Computer Science and Art)
Wake Forest University

Steps to Balance Redox Equations in Acid

Step 1: Separate in half reactions.
Step 2: In each half reaction, balance all elements except O & H.
Step 3: Balance O by adding H2O.
Step 4: Balance H by adding H+.
Step 5: Balance charges by adding e-.
Step 6: Multiply all coefficients in 1 or both half reactions by an integer to get the number of e- in the two half reactions equal.
Step 7: Add the 2 half reactions together & cancel out any species that appear on both sides of net reaction.
Step 8: Check that charges and atoms are balanced.

Steps Review: An online interactive pop quiz to test your memory of the order of the steps.

 

An online interactive tutorial to show you step-by-step how to apply the steps:

a screenshot of the program

Update 2020-11: The Adobe Shockwave is no longer supported but I have received requests to access this interactive tutorial. So now I have made this interactive tutorial available as an executable for Windows.

Click here to download the executable. Remember where you download the file to. After it has finished downloading, double-click on the .exe file to run it. It does not require Internet access to run.

Please email me if you need an executable for MacOS.