Final answer:
To balance the chemical equation for the reaction of sulfur dioxide and oxygen to sulfur trioxide, place a coefficient of 2 in front of both SO2 and SO3, resulting in the balanced equation: 2SO2 + O2 → 2SO3.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question you've asked is about balancing a chemical equation, specifically for the reaction of sulfur dioxide with oxygen to produce sulfur trioxide. To balance this equation, we look at the number of atoms of each element on both sides of the equation.
We start by balancing the sulfur atoms, which are already balanced with one S atom on each side. Next, we need to balance the oxygen atoms. On the reactant side, we have two O atoms from the O2 molecule and two more from the SO2 molecule, totaling four O atoms.
On the product side, the SO3 molecule has three O atoms, but since we need to balance it with the reactant side, we will place a coefficient of 2 before SO3 to make it 2SO3, which gives us six O atoms in total on the product side.
To balance the extra O atoms, we also need to add a coefficient of 2 before the SO2 on the reactant side. The correct balanced equation is: 2SO2 + O2 → 2SO3. This ensures that there are four O atoms from 2SO2 and two from O2, adding up to six O atoms, which equals the six O atoms in the 2SO3 molecules on the product side, and also balances the S atoms with two on each side of the equation.