Le Chateliers Principle

[Hector Acosta Discussion 1H]

Can someone explain this to me in simple terms I never learned it in high school and its still confusing to me.

[Isa Samad 1L]

LCP, aka Le Chatelier's principle, is basically the idea that if a stress is applied to a system in equilibrium, the system will try to reverse said stress. For example, take the reaction SO2(g)+O2(g)⇌SO3(g), if the concentration of SO2 was increased, the system would try to remove the added SO2 by shifting right by LCP. The result is an increase in the concentration of SO3. Likewise, if the concentration of SO2 is decreased, the system will shift left by LCP to replace the lost SO2, resulting in an increase in the concentration of SO2.

[Camille Ng 1D]

The principle basically states that if a change is made in a system/reaction, the system will act to reduce that change. For example, if more reactant was added then the system will shift to make more products to reduce the change of more reactants.

[Michelle Steinberg2J]

I learned a really awesome way to memorize Le Chatelier's Principle in high school. It puts it in layman's terms.

"Add Away. Take Towards."

If you ADD, the equilibrium will shift AWAY from where you added - AKA the opposite side of the reaction.
If you TAKE, the equilibrium will shift TOWARD where you added - AKA the same side of the reaction.

So, if you add a reactant, your reaction will shift to the products.
If you take away a reactant, your reaction will shift to the reactants.