Untitled - Kelly Walsh High School

Aqueous Solutions 67
Don’t Forget!
hydrogen, H 2, or a metal indicates that redox is possible. We can determine if
there will be redox by using the activity series.
We will begin, as before, with a group of potential reactions:
HCl(aq) Ni(s) l
CuBr 2(aq) Zn(s) l
Mg(s) HC 2H 3O 2(aq) l
Al 2(SO 4) 3(aq) Fe(s) l
Li(s) H 2O(l) l
We need to consider the constituent ions of the compounds.
HCl(aq) Ni(s) l
H Cl
CuBr 2(aq) Zn(s) l
Cu 2 Br
Mg(s) HC 2H 3O 2(aq) l
H C 2H 3O 2
Al 2(SO 4) 3(aq) Fe(s) l
Al 3 SO 4 2
Li(s) H 2O(l) l
H OH
As seen in the previous examples, we do not need to worry about the number of
each type of ion present, only their identity. There is a difference in these examples
that we did not see before, and that we are treating water as H OH .
Elements, such as Ni(s), should not be changed to ions.
The anions, negative ions, are not of concern to us at this time. We only need
to locate the elements and cations on the activity series table. Here is our
abbreviated activity series table with the substances from the first reaction in
boldface: