To complete the balancing of the following combustion reaction, we must do elemental balances. For C, there is 5 on the left side hence there should be 5 CO2. For H, H20 should be 9/2. Next we balance O. on theright side we find a total of 29/2. So the o2 on the left side should be 29/4. To have whole number stoich.coeff. we multiply the numbers by 4, hence answer is
4C5H9O + 9O2= 20 O2 + 18 H20.
