In class, Professor Lavelle mentioned Le Chatelier's Principle. What is Le Chatelier's Principle and how does it apply to chemical equilibrium and the ideal gas law?
Sorry, I don't have a strong background in chemistry because I didn't take AP Chem and don't remember sophomore year's chemistry.
Le Chatelier's Principle
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
Le chatlier's basically tells us that a reaction will shift towards either the right or left (product or reactant formation) in order to alleviate the stress placed on the reaction. The reaction behaves in this way because one something is added or taken away from a reaction, it placed the reaction out of equilibrium. Thermodynamically, we favor everything in nature to go towards the lowest energy state and at equilibrium, the reaction or molecules exist at their most stable/lowest energy state. So in order to counteract an added stress, the reaction must act in the opposite way.
Ex. PCl5 --> PCl3 + Cl2 (assume theyre all aq)
if we increase the concentration of cl2, according to le chateliers, the rxn shifts to the left in order to reduce all that added cl2 and bring the overal reaction back to equilibrium. By increasing more reactant, mathematically, we are trying to get the same K constant value before that Cl2 was added by increasing the denominator (reactant) .
Ex. PCl5 --> PCl3 + Cl2 (assume theyre all aq)
if we increase the concentration of cl2, according to le chateliers, the rxn shifts to the left in order to reduce all that added cl2 and bring the overal reaction back to equilibrium. By increasing more reactant, mathematically, we are trying to get the same K constant value before that Cl2 was added by increasing the denominator (reactant) .
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
In a way you can think about Le Chatelier's Principle as the homeostasis of a reaction. When something in the reaction changes, the reaction responds accordingly. If more reactants were to be added, the reaction would respond by forming more products. If more products were added, then more reactants would formed.
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
Le Chatelier's principle is when chemical reactions adjust to minimize the effect of changes in the reaction. This is why, to increase the yield of the products without adding anymore reactants, we remove the products, disrupting the equilibrium.
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
Le Chatelier's Principle is a way to make sure a reaction stays at equilibrium when a different force, such as pressure or volume, is altered.
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
Le Chateliers principle is basically the idea that a chemical reaction will adjust to maintain chemical equilibrium. For instance if you remove product more product is produced to maintain the equilibrium
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
Angela Wu-2H wrote:In class, Professor Lavelle mentioned Le Chatelier's Principle. What is Le Chatelier's Principle and how does it apply to chemical equilibrium and the ideal gas law?
Sorry, I don't have a strong background in chemistry because I didn't take AP Chem and don't remember sophomore year's chemistry.
Same here, haven't done chemistry since sophomore year of high school!
Le Chatelier's Principle basically states that chemical reactions would always go towards chemical equilibrium, and that it would also apply to changing factors. In other words, it adjusts so to reduce any effects on the reaction when conditions are changing. That's what I know for this principle. Hope it helps!
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Re: Le Chatelier's Principle
The principle states that reactions adjust to reduce the effects of a changing system. It will basically try to go into equilibrium state. For instance, think about how we can create more products without adding more reactants. We are able to get more products by actually removing them in which the reactants will then form more products at the end because the system will continuously try to maintain "balance."
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