Aqueous solutions chemical equation, specifying

Throughout this book, assume that all species in chemical equations are in aqueous solution, unless otherwise specified. 

Glycolysis involves 10 biochemical reactions and 16 reactants. Water is not counted as a reactant in writing the stoichiometric number matrix or the conservation matrix for reasons described in Section 6.3. Thus there are six components because C = N — R = 16 — 10 = 6. From a chemical standpoint this is a surprise because the reactants involve only C, H, O, N, and P. Since H and O are not conserved at specified pH in dilute aqueous solution, there are only three conservation equations based on elements. Thus three additional conservation relations arise from the mechanisms of the enzyme-catalyzed reactions in glycolysis. Some of these conservation relations are discussed in Alberty (1992a). At specified pH in dilute aqueous solutions the reactions in glycolysis are... 

The heat evolved in a chemical reaction will therefore vary according as the reacting substances are in solution or not. Thus the formation of solid ammonium chloride from gaseous ammonia and gaseous hydrochloric acid has not the same heat of reaction as the formation of ammonium chloride solution from aqueous ammonia and aqueous hydrochloric acid. We must specify the state of solution in our thermo-chemical equations. The above example must be written either... 

One requirement for a reaction to occur is that the chemicals involved must be able to mix and interact with one another. Thus the physical state of the reactants can be important. In particular, an aqueous solution is often used as the medium for a reaction. To describe reactions in the aqueous phase effectively, we often need to specify the molar concentration of the solutions used. We also have options about how to write the chemical reaction itself—as a molecular equation, for example, or a net ionic equation. Several classes of chemical reactions, such as precipitation reactions or acid-base neutralizations, are sufficiently common that additional definitions have been established to improve our ability to communicate about them. 

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