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Nov29-04, 02:28 PM   #5
 
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Quote by nautica
Cool, this is what I got

5NO + 3MNO4 = 5NO3 + 3MnO2

It appears that all are balanced. Does this look right.
Thanks
nautica
Well, it seems that atom counts are okay, but you've forgotten ionic counts. This is why redox reactions are hard to study.

You said that this redox should be in basic solution; so just put OH- ions to the left side. However, there is a serious error; in basic solutions, permanganate is only reduced to manganese dioxide, as you correctly wrote. So the coefficients cancel to reflect this:

[tex]N^{2+}+Mn^{7+}\longrightarrow N^{5+}+Mn^{4+}[/tex]

So if we write its real forms, we'll get this one:

[tex]NO + KMnO_4 \longrightarrow KNO_3 + MnO_2 [/tex]