Imagine that you are a geologist trying to determine the amount of iron in the samples of rocks in a mountain side. A typical reaction used to determine the amount of iron in a sample is to combine it in a reaction with permanganate ion, MnO4-, with Fe2+ in an acidic solution. The skeleton reaction is: MnO4-(aq) + Fe2+(aq) --> Mn2+(aq) + Fe3+(aq)
• Write the half reactions for this reaction.
• Write the balanced equation for this reaction.