[Alan]

Hi guys,

I'm dealing with a kind of easy task, which however is making me think more than I should.
I have to balance this chemical equation, which is a redox reaction that involve the oxidation state of Fe, from Fe2+ to Fe3+ and the reduction of C from C4+ to elemental carbon.

The unbalanced reaction is the following:

FeCO3 = Fe4C3O12 + Fe13O19 + C

In FeCO3, Fe is 2+
In Fe4C3O12, Fe is 3+
In Fe13O19, 12 Fe atoms are 3+ and one is 2+

Can you help me??

Thanks a lot and in advance for your *delete me*
Allan

[Borek]

As far as I can tell there is no unique solution.

[Alan]

yes I know, indeed I solved it in my way, but I'd like to have different opinions !

[Borek]

What kind of different opinions do you want? If it can be solved, there are infinitely many solutions, that's all.

[Alan]

oh man, calm down, we are here to discuss....

I did it, fine, I can do it differently and I ask other people their opinion...Me, I have to deal with these things time to time, I'm not an expert and I hope here there are people that are actually more involved in inorganic chemistry than myself... These people might help me with positive and constructive comments... Your reply is not useful first and helpful at all, so please avoid them.

[billnotgatez]

@Alan
Please read forum rules.

[Borek]

I think you don't understand the answer that you were given.

Reaction equation - if you want it to make chemical sense - must be possible to balance in only one way. If there is more than one way reaction can be balanced, it is either a sum of several separate processes, or it describes a process in which stoichiometry is defined by the reaction mechanism. In both cases "mechanical" balancing of the reaction equation yields an answer that is completely useless - even if you have a "balanced" reaction equation it can't be used for predicting reaction stoichiometry.

See examples of such situations here:

http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=balancing-stoichiometry&right=balancing-failure