How do temperature and pressure work in le Chatelier's principle?
1 Answer
The system will always try to increase or decrease the pressure and temperature.
Increasing the pressure of a gas on one side of the equation will cause the reaction to shift to the side with fewer molecules.
If the pressure is decreased, the reaction will shift towards the reactant side to produce more molecules.
If temperature is increased, the reaction will move in a way to reduce the temperature. If more heat is being generated on the product side of the reaction, it will shift to favor the reactants allowing it to absorb the heat that was just released.
If temperature is decreased, the equilibrium will move in a way that increases the temperature. If a reaction is lowered from 300C to 200C, the reaction will heat itself up again by favoring the exothermic reaction. So, the equilibrium will move to the right.
