Magnesium reacts with titanium(4) chloride to produce magnesium chloride and titanium metal. How do you write a balanced equation for this reaction?

2 Answers
Dec 18, 2016

2Mg+TiCl42MgCl2+Ti

Explanation:

Because the magnesium ion has a +2 charge, the formula for magnesium chloride is MgCl2.

To balance the four Cl ions in titanium (IV) chloride, the reaction must produce 2 units of MgCl2

Dec 18, 2016

TiCl4+2MgTi+2MgCl2

Explanation:

We could do this by individual redox steps:

TiCl4+4eTi+4Cl (i)

MgMg2++2e (ii)

(i)+2×(ii)= TiCl4+2MgTi+2MgCl2

With all chemical reactions, 2 conditions must be absolutely satisfied: (i) mass must be balanced; and (ii) charge must be balanced. Well, is they?

Note that just because I can write the reaction, there is no likelihood that the reaction can be performed. Should I attempt to reduce the chloride with magnesium metal I would likely get a mess. Titanic chloride is unstable with respect to water and dioxygen.