Summary:
- The law of conservation of mass states that, during a chemical reaction, the total mass of the products must be equal to the totalMass of the reactants.
- In other words, mass cannot be created or destroyed during a reaction, but is always conserved.
- The law was developed by chemists in the late 1700s.
- It is based on the fact that elements combine with one another to form more complex substances called compounds.
- The chemical and physical properties of these compounds are different than the properties of the elements from which they were formed.