Balancing Basic vs. Acidic Reactions

[Kyle Walsh 2J]

Hi, so in high school chemistry I was taught that to balance basic reactions you went through the same steps as an acidic one, but then just added as many OH- as H+'s, and then cancelled out the water. However, in the solutions manual, I often notice that they have a different, more streamlined method, which sometimes disagrees with mine. Since I don't believe we ever explicitly went over it in class, I was wondering if anybody had a simple explanation. Thank you so much!

[SophiaBarden 2E]

So balancing redox equations in acidic solutions is arguably easier ; Balance the O by adding H2O and then balance H by adding H+.
Balancing redox equations in a basic solution is trickier, but there are some good steps to follow;
>balance O by using H2O
>Balance H by adding H2O to side that need H nd adding OH to the other side
>Then you can cancel extra and like species!

[Natalie 3k]

A tip that I found useful for basic solutions is to find however many Oxygens you need on one side, and add double that many OH- to the same side. Then to balance it, add that number of H2O to the other side. (so for ex, if the left side has 2 oxygens and the right has 1 oxygen, you would add 2 oh- to the right and one h2o to the left).

[Brianna Chen 3F]

For balancing basic reactions, Andrew Salmon showed us a technique in his office hours that may help! He said that you can balance the reaction as if it were in acidic conditions, then any H+ left in the final overall equation you would change to the same amount of H2O and add the same amount of OH- to the other side.