Le Chatelier's Principle

[Gabi_Maldonado_1B]

Can someone simply explain our use for Le Chatelier's Principle?

[Sujin Lim 1H]

The Le Chatelier's Principle just states that when a change is added to a chemical system, the system will work to minimize the effect of that change. We learned about this concept in the context of Chemical Equilibrium. Basically, we can use this principle to predict how the system will react if a change is added to the system, such as change in concentration, pressure, and temperature.For example, if the concentration of reactants in increased to a chemical reaction already at equilibrium, the addition of more reactants added will cause the reaction to temporarily "shift to the right" and form more products in order to get rid of the excess reactants. This is what the principle means by "minimizing the effect of the change". In order to minimize the change of addition of reactants, the reaction will respond to create more products. Hope this makes sense!

[ashna kumar 3k]

In simple terms, it is how the reaction responds (shift left or right) in order to go back to a state of equilibrium. LeChatlier's' principle applies when there is a change in concentration, pressure (due to volume change), and temperature.
For concentration, if a reactant is increased or products are decreased, the system favors the forwards reaction to create more product. Conversely, if product concentration is increased or reactant concentration decreases, the system shifts left to create more reactant.

For pressure, if pressure is increased due to decreasing volume, the reaction shifts to whichever side of the reaction has less moles of gas. The opposite is true is pressure is decreased due to increasing the volume.

Temperature is different because the equilibrium constant does change. In an endothermic reaction, heating the system favors the forwards reaction and cooling it favors the reverse. The opposite is true of an exothermic reaction.

In summary, it is how the system reacts to maintain equilibrium when one condition is changed.