If the equilibrium constant (K) = 100, this reaction favors the (reactants/products) and proceeds (very little/almost to completion). Equilibrium?

Question

If the equilibrium constant (K) = 100, this reaction favors the (reactants/products) and proceeds (very little/almost to completion). Equilibrium?

1 Answer

Impact of this question

11495 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2017-05-26T14:22:38

Let's take the general equilibrium reaction:
$w A + x B \leftrightarrow y C + z D$ $wA+xBharryC+zD$

In which A, B, C and D are compounds and w,x,y,z are coefficients.
To determine the equilibrium constant, we write:

$K = \frac{{[C]}^{y} \times {[D]}^{z}}{{[A]}^{w} \times {[B]}^{x}} a a a a \frac{1 .}{2 .}$ $K=([C]^yxx[D]^z)/([A]^wxx[B]^x)color(white)(aaaa)color(white)(color(blue)(1.)/color(blue)(2.)$

The equilibrium constant says something about the proceeding of the reaction: does it favour the forward reaction or the backwards reaction? The blue numbers represent the concentration of the two sides:

"Combined concentration products"
"Combined concentration reactants"

We have given that $K = 100$ $K=100$ , this means that side 1 must be a larger number than number 2. Only then will K be larger than 1. This means that the combined concentration of side 1 (products) is larger than the combined concentration of side 2.
Therefore the reaction is favoured to the right side (the product side). Since K=100 is pretty big, the reaction will probably go almost into completion.

By following this method, you can figure out that

K>>1 $a a$ $color(white)(aa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Product favored $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Close to completion
K>1 $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Product favored $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Very little
K=1 $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Equilibrium $a a a a a a a$ $color(white)(aaaaaaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ -
K<1 $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Reactant favored $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Very little
K<<1 $a a$ $color(white)(aa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Reactant favored $a a a$ $color(white)(aaa)$ $∣$ $color(blue)(|)$ Close to completion

Science

Math

Humanities

... and beyond

If the equilibrium constant (K) = 100, this reaction favors the (reactants/products) and proceeds (very little/almost to completion). Equilibrium?

1 Answer

Related questions

Impact of this question