Balancing Chemical Equations by Systems of Linear Equations

Abstract

In this paper, a formal and systematic method for balancing chemical reaction equations was presented. The results satisfy the law of conservation of matter, and confirm that there is no contradiction to the existing way(s) of balancing chemical equations. A chemical reaction which possesses atoms with fractional oxidation numbers that have unique coefficients was studied. In this paper, the chemical equations were balanced by representing the chemical equation into systems of linear equations. Particularly, the Gauss elimination method was used to solve the mathematical problem with this method, it was possible to handle any chemical reaction with given reactants and products.