Question

Your reactants are a hydrocarbon and oxygen. Your products are carbon dioxide and water. What type of reaction do you have?

Answer 1

A combustion reaction, which is (i) a special case of redox reactions, and (ii) which drives our industrial society.

Explanation:

We can give the general combustion reaction for an alkane as:

`C_nH_(2n+2) + (3n+1)/2O_2 rarr nCO_2 + (n+1)H_2O + Delta`

Is this balanced? If it's not, it should be!

Carbon is oxidized up to its maximum oxidation state `+IV` (from FORMAL oxidation states of `-III` and `-II` in the alkane); zerovalent oxygen gas is reduced to a `-II` oxidation state. These reactions are strongly exothermic in that while we break STRONG `C-H` and `O=O` bonds, we make STRONGER `C=O` and `O-H` bonds, with a net release of energy.

The reaction represents complete combustion in that all of the carbon reactant is oxidized to `C(IV)`. Under conditions of incomplete combustion (for instance in the internal combustion reaction or a furnace) SOME of the hydrocarbon could be oxidized to `C-=O` or particulate `C`.