Overall Rxn K

[Samantha Lee 1A]

In today's lecture, Dr. Lavelle combined several chemical reactions together and found the overall K. I was a little confused and wanted to make sure I understood this correctly: you add the reactions together and multiply the K's together, correct? Any other tips on how to approach questions like these or is this the basis of the concept?

[SelenaDahabreh1D]

I think Dr. Lavelle discussed this to highlight the basic concept that the overall Ka value is the product of Ka1 and Ka2. So, I believe that you are going about performing this correctly. But I also think that the biggest takeaway from this was that Ka1>Ka2>Ka3 because it harder to deprotonate a negatively charged ion, which you would eventually visually see when you add the reactions together.

[Andrew Wang 1C]

Yes, when you combine (add) the two reactions together you would multiply their individual K's together to get the K of the overall reaction. I think the equilibrium constants will be covered more in-depth in 14B, and for this class just know K_A decreases as you remove more protons, and that a higher K_A means a stronger acid.