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About this tool
Interactive stoichiometric chemical reaction simulator with animated molecular rearrangements, balanced equations, and enthalpy energy diagrams.
The Chemical Reaction Explorer animates one worked example of each of the five main reaction classes — combination, decomposition, single replacement, double replacement and combustion — showing reactant particles fade out as products form, with the balanced equation and its standard enthalpy change alongside. You can play the transformation, pause it, or drag a slider to sit at any point between reactants and products. It is built for chemistry students learning to recognise reaction types and read a balanced equation, not for balancing arbitrary equations you type in.
Open Chemical Reaction Explorer on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Pick one of the five buttons in the Reaction Type Selector — Combination (Synthesis), Decomposition, Single Replacement, Double Replacement or Combustion. Each button carries its own balanced equation, and the chosen one is pinned to the top-left corner of the canvas
Click Trigger Reaction to run the animation: the labelled reactants fade out on the left as the products fade in on the right. The button reads Pause Reaction while it plays, it stops on its own at the products, and Reset returns everything to the reactants
Drag the Reactants to Products slider under the canvas to scrub the transformation by hand, and read the Enthalpy and Thermodynamics tiles beside the selector — combustion of methane, for instance, reports -890.3 kJ/mol and Highly Exothermic
The slider lets you stop anywhere between 0% and 100% conversion, so you can hold the exact frame you want to talk about.
The five reactions are shown with their proper coefficients and states, including the AgCl precipitate that makes double replacement visible.
Every reaction carries its standard enthalpy change in kJ/mol next to its thermodynamic label, tying the classification to the energy released.
Combination (2H2 + O2 gives 2H2O), decomposition (2H2O2 gives 2H2O + O2), single replacement (Zn + 2HCl gives ZnCl2 + H2), double replacement (AgNO3 + NaCl gives AgCl precipitate + NaNO3), and combustion (CH4 + 2O2 gives CO2 + 2H2O). Each has its own animation and enthalpy value.
The standard enthalpy change for complete methane combustion is about -890.3 kJ per mole of CH4, the largest release among the five reactions here. The negative sign marks it as exothermic, which is why methane works as a domestic fuel.
It means the reaction releases heat to its surroundings, so the products hold less chemical energy than the reactants. All five reactions in this explorer are exothermic, ranging from about -65.5 kJ/mol for the silver chloride precipitation up to -890.3 kJ/mol for methane combustion.
No, this tool animates five fixed worked examples rather than accepting free-form input. Use it to see how each reaction class behaves and how a balanced equation is read; balancing an arbitrary equation is a separate task.