The reaction environment uses the \ch command from the chemformula package internally. In the manual of the latter one can read
chemformula distinguishes between different types of input. These
different parts have to be separated with blanks [...] A blank in the
input never is a blank in the output. This role of the blank strictly
holds and disregarding it can have unexpected results and even lead to
errors.
Every blank in the input splits the input into different parts. In
\begin{reaction*}
N2 \gas{} + O2 \gas{} <=> 2 NO \gas{} \qquad $\Delta H > 0$
\end{reaction*}
we have the parts (remember that blanks after control sequences are ignored):
N2 (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
+ (plus sign)
O2 (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
<=> (arrow)
2 (stoichiometric factor)
NO (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
\qquad $\Delta H (chemical formula)
> (chemical formula)
0$ (chemical formula)
Everything that cannot be interpreted as a certain input type (like arrow, ...) is treated as a chemical formula which means that digits are written as supscripts then...
In order to avoid this one can use chemformula's math input type which must start and end with $. It also must be preceded with a blank and must not contain any blanks:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{chemmacros}
\providecommand\IfChemCompatibilityTF[4]{#4}
\IfChemCompatibilityTF{>=}{5.0}{
\usechemmodule{reactions,thermodynamics}
}{}
\begin{document}
\begin{reaction*}
N2 \gas{} + O2 \gas{} <=> 2 NO \gas{} \qquad{} $\Delta H>0$
\end{reaction*}
\end{document}

The second example has the input parts
N2 (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
+ (plus sign)
O2 (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
<=> (arrow)
2 (stoichiometric factor)
NO (chemical formula)
\gas{} (chemical formula)
\qquad{} (chemical formula)
$\Delta H>0$ (escaped math)
\documentclass{...}, the required\usepackage's,\begin{document}, and\end{document}. That may seem tedious to you, but think of the extra work it represents for TeX.SX users willing to give you a hand. Help them help you: remove that one hurdle between you and a solution to your problem. – Guido Oct 23 '14 at 09:55