What change will you observe if white silver chloride is placed in sunlight? Write an equation for the reaction and the type of the reaction.

The silver is sensitive to light hence, silver compounds are stored in dark coloured bottles.

Similarly, silver chloride is a light-sensitive compound that is it gets decomposed when exposed to light.

So, when silver chloride is exposed to sunlight, it gets decomposed to give silver metal and chlorine gas is liberated. The reaction is an example of a photolysis reaction.

The word photolysis can be broken into two parts photo means light and lysis means breaking. So photolysis means breaking of a compound in the presence of light.

The reaction is given as follows:

2AgCl → 2Ag + Cl₂