Question

I am really stuck, I have tried to look these up everywhere and I keep getting different answers.
I have to find the balanced equations for:
Magnesium + Citric acid
Zinc + citric acid
Copper + Citric acid
Manganese + Citric acid
If I can have some help it would be much appreciated!
Do they all follow the same pattern?

Answer 1

Citric acid is an organic acid that I can't draw on the board but it is convenient to show it as H3C to indicate it has three replaceable H atoms. Assuming you have an excess of the metal in the reactions, all three H atoms will be replaced. I will do the first one for you.
3Mg + 2H3C ==> 3H2 + Mg3C2
3 magnesium + 2 citric acid ==> 3 hydrogen gas + magnesium citrate.
Since the valence of Mg, Cu, Zn and Mn are the same in these reactions, you need only replace the metal and all of the coefficients remain the same.

Answer 2

Ok, is citric acid not C6H8O7 ? That's what my teacher has said. Would it be: 2C6H8O7 + 3Mg --->(C6H5O7)2Mg3 + 3H2

Answer 3

yes. It isn't incorrect to write magnesium citrate the way you did; however, USUALLY we write the cation ion first and the anion second so I would write that as Mg3(C6H5O7)2.

Answer 4

Ahh ok, thank you very much :)