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Let's look at the following example and see if you can pick out the raw materials and the end products.Bob wants to bake brownies. He gathers up flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and chocolate. According to the instructions, he mixes them together, bakes them in an oven for 30 minutes and 2out comes brownies.Did you find the raw materials? The things Bob started with are called ingredients in a recipe. In chemistry, they're called reactants. Remember "R" for raw, "R" for reactants. The final result for Bob was brownies. That is what he was trying to produce. The end result of a chemical reaction is called the product or products. Let's look at this equation. The reactants go on the left and the products go on the right. The arrow in the middle tells us that this reaction only goes one way, and the product is brownies. It's a good thing that the reaction only goes one way, or else the brownie could turn back into flour and egg in your mouth. Now let's look at a similar chemical equation. This means that when you add sodium to water, it will change into hydrogen gas and NaOH, or sodium hydroxide. It's not important that you remember the details of the equation, but it's important that you can identify reactants and products.
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