Question

Sodium reacts with chlorine to form the compound sodium chloride, or salt. If the total mass of the reactants is 58.44 amu, what will be the total mass of the products?

Answer 1

Answer: 58.44amu

Step-by-step explanation:

The Law of the Conservation of mass states that mass isn't created nor destroyed, but simply transformed.

Applying it in a chemistry context means that there will be the same amount of mass of product as you will start out with, as the mass is transformed from the reactants' mass to the products'.

Therefore, it is 58.44amu.

Answer 2

The Law of Conservation of Matter is also called the law of conservation of mass or the Law of Lomonósov-Lavoisier. This law postulates that "the mass is not created or destroyed, only transformed."
This means that the reagents interact with each other and form new products with physical and chemical properties different from those of the reagents because the atoms of the substances are ordered differently. But the amount of matter or mass before and after a transformation (chemical reaction) is always the same, that is, the quantities of the masses involved in a given reaction must be constant at all times, not changing in their proportions when the reaction ends.
In other words, then the mass before the chemical reaction is equal to the mass after the reaction.
So, in this case, if the total mass of the reactants is 58.44 amu, the total mass of the products will be the same and has a value of 58.44 amu.