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If a piece of metal, such as calcium or magnesium, reacts with atmospheric oxygen, would you expect the product to have a greater or lesser mass that the reacting metal? Why?

Answer 1

Cameron Andrews

Should you not tell us this?

An alloy becomes oxidized when it reacts with atmospheric oxygen:

#"Metal + dioxygen " rarr " Metal oxide"#.

Furthermore, mass is always conserved during chemical reactions.

Given the conservation of mass, what should be the oxide's mass in relation to the initial metal?

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Answer 2

Cooper Adams

Because the metal reacts with atmospheric oxygen to form metal oxides, which have more mass than the original metal because of the addition of oxygen atoms, the product would have a greater mass than the reacting metal.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.