How to Do Equilibrium Equations

Equilibrium equations relate the concentrations of products and reactants within a reversible chemical reaction. A chemical reaction is said to be in equilibrium if the rate of the forward reaction is equal to the rate of the reverse reaction. A value "K" known as the equilibrium constant governs the equilibrium values of each reaction. Temperature and catalysts may decrease the time it takes for a reaction to come to equilibrium; however, they do not affect the equilibrium concentrations.

Instructions

    • 1

      Analyze the reversible reaction to locate the product and reactants. The products are on the right side of the arrow, and the reactants are on the left side. For example, in the equation "Ca2+ + 2OH- <--> CaOH2," CaOH2 is the product and Ca2+ and OH- are the reactants.

    • 2

      Create an equilibrium equation by writing the concentrations of the products over the concentrations of the reactants. In this example, the equation is "K = [CaOH2]/ ([Ca2+][OH-])."

    • 3

      Raise the concentrations in the equation to the power of their respective coefficients in the reaction. In this example, the equation becomes "K = [CaOH2]/ ([Ca2+][OH-]^2)." This is the complete equilibrium equation.

    • 4

      Plug in the known values of concentration given in the problem and the K value to find any remaining concentration values. For example, if K is given as 120, [OH-] is .004 and [Ca2+] is .002, then [CaOH2] is 120*[.002]*[.004]^2, or .00000384.

Learnify Hub © www.0685.com All Rights Reserved