## "omitting" the units

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### "omitting" the units

Professor Lavelle mentioned that when calculating K, you omit the units. What does this mean and why do we do it?

Brian_Ho_2B
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### Re: "omitting" the units

We omit the units because in actuality we are supposed to be calculating equilibrium constants and reaction quotients using the activities of each reactant or product of a reaction. Activities are unitless, only scalar values, so it makes sense that calculating a value K with unitless values produces another unitless value. However, for the purpose of this class, activities and concentration/partial pressure values are close enough to the activities' values that we use those to calculate K. We are concerned about the values when we calculate K or Q, not necessarily the units involved.

Chem_Mod
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### Re: "omitting" the units

We are technically using chemical activities to calculate K. Activities are unitless, so that makes K unitless. To be be more exact, you should be writing the equilibrium constant by using activities. K equals the activities of products to respective stoichiometric coefficients over activities of reactants to respective stoichiometric coefficients. Keep in mind that the activity of water is 1 when it is the solvent. We use concentrations to calculate K because it is a good enough approximation to activities.

cassidysong 1K
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### Re: "omitting" the units

^^as they stated K represents activity which is unitless

Morgan Carrington 2H
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### Re: "omitting" the units

You aren't really "omitting" the units. It is just that since all of the units on the values being used to calculate K[sub]c[sub] are the same, they cancel each other out. It is sort of like when doing conversion factors you put the same units in the denominator or numerator in order to cancel them out, but this is completely unintentional.

Kassidy Ford 1I
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### Re: "omitting" the units

But in this course often a question will ask for a specific K, like Kc or Kp. In this case, make sure your units match with what the question is asking for. But K does not necessarily have to have this specificity

Matthew Tsai 2H
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### Re: "omitting" the units

As mentioned in this thread, because the units in the numerator and the denominator are the same, you can think of K as "unitless" because it just indicates the direction and degree of reaction.

Jocelyn Thorp 1A
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### Re: "omitting" the units

You're not really "omitting" units, K is unitless (since it is a ratio, the units "cancel")