reverse reaction
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reverse reaction
when the reverse reaction is favored, is K larger or smaller than the forward reaction?
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Re: reverse reaction
When the reverse reaction is favored the K is small. This is because if the reverse reaction is favored there will be a larger concentration of the reactants at equilibrium, and since k is products over reactants a larger denominator would cause k to be smaller.
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Re: reverse reaction
If the value of K is less than 1, the reactants in the reaction are favored. If K is equal to 1, neither reactants nor products are favored.
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Re: reverse reaction
An easy way to test this during a test would be to look at your equation for Kc and plug in values for it. If equal to 1, then the reverse and forward reactions are equal. If less then one (small), the reverse reaction is favored because that means the denominator is larger then the numerator (products/ reactants) and vice versa.
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Re: reverse reaction
For small values of K, equilibrium favors the reactants. I remember it by thinking that a larger denominator will make the value of a fraction smaller. In K’s case, the denominator represents the concentration of reactants, so a high concentration of reactants at equilibrium will produce a small K value.
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Re: reverse reaction
The reverse reaction is favored when K is less than 1. That means that there are more reactants (denominator) than products (numerator). If K is greater than 1, then it is the forward reaction that is favored for the opposite reasoning.
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Re: reverse reaction
K would typically be smaller since there would be more reactants than products if the reverse reaction was favored meaning that in the K formula, it would be less than 1 whereas if the forward reaction was favored, then there would be more products than reactants and K would be greater than 1.
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Re: reverse reaction
When the reverse rxn is being favored, then that would mean that the formation of reactants are favored over that of products. And because of this, the concentration of reactants increases, which explains why the K value decreases since remember that K is the ratio between products and reactants. Reactants are in the denominator.
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Re: reverse reaction
If the reverse reaction if favored, it means that the concentration of reactants is higher than that of the products, so K would be small.
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Re: reverse reaction
Hi! When the reverse reaction is favored, K is smaller. Reverse reaction is favored whenever there is a lot of reactants, meaning the reaction will go towards the reactants to decrease it and go back to equilibrium. Since K is calculated by [P]/[R], a big R concentration will make K smaller. The bigger the denominator, the smaller the K.
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