5.61 PART B

[Juwan_Madaki_3K]

The solution manual states that compressing the system has no effect because there's an equal number of moles on both sides. However, the equation has 12 moles on the reactant side and 7 on the product side. Can someone explain if I'm missing something?

[Andrew Wang 1C]

When changing the pressure, we only look at the number of moles of gas. In this case there are 6 moles of gas on each side, so there is no change.

[Yasmina Zaarour 1G]

The strategy of comparing moles on each side of the equation only applies to gas molecules, since compressing a liquid does not change its concentration. Likewise, compressing an aqueous solution does not change the concentration of the solute. So, you would have 6 moles of gas on the left and 6 moles of gas on the right to analyze.

[Shrey Pawar 2A]

As stated above, when talking about the pressure we are not looking at the pressure of all the molecules in the reaction, only those that are in the gas phase. This is due to the fact that we cannot exactly measure the amount of pressure in a solid or liquid substance. Hope this helps!