how do you do chemical equations? How do you know which elements join together and which ones don’t?
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The process is called stoichiometry.
Basically, elements are made of known, equal, numbers of protons and electrons, equal to their atomic number. The protons stay in the center of the atom while electrons form into regular groups called shells, like satellites in orbit. A shell can only contain a maximum number of electrons before their mutual magnetic repulsion forces new ones farther out. An atom “wants”, risking the anthropomorphization here, it’s outermost shell to be full.
To accomplish this, it will either “share” electrons with nearby atoms. This in effect increases the electron count in both atom’s outer shell. This is what is called a covalent bond.
By knowing how an atom’s atomic number, and how many electrons fit into each shell, we can do some quick math to figure out how simple chemicals will form.
Example H2O: water
(H)ydrogen has one electron
(O)xygen has 8
The first shell can contain a maximum of two electrons
The second shell can contain eight.
So each hydrogen forms one bond with the oxygen; effectively bringing the hydrogens up to two electrons, one full shell, and the Oxygen up to 10 electrons, which is two full shells.
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