In a chemical reaction occurring in an open beaker, the reactants have a mass of 10.0 g and contain 1000 j of energy. the products in the beaker contain a mass of 5.0 g and 500 j of energy. which best explains the difference in energy and mass as reactants are converted to products?

Explanation:

This happens because the beaker is open.

The Law of Mass Conservation says that in a close system all the mass and energy should be the same.

If the system is open, as in the case, we can have loss of mass, due to formation of gas, that will leave the beaker to the environment, and we can also have loss of energy, because the system will exchange the energy, as heat, with the environment, causing a loss on the total energy.

the seeing the electronic configuration we can say that the element is fluorine.

fluorine is the most electronegative element in the periodic table.

but by only seeing the configuration we cannot say about its reactivity because we don't know if its configuration after excitation or by addition of electrons.

but if not then, it is the lightest halogen and exists as a highly toxic pale yellow diatomic gas at standard conditions. as the most electronegative element, it is extremely reactive: almost all other elements, including some noble gases, form compounds with fluorine.