Lecture (4)

Chemical Equilibrium

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Lecture content

1. The concept of chemical equilibrium.

2. The equilibrium constant.

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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium

• Some chemical reactions reach an equilibrium state.

• In this state, we have a mixture of reactants and products
whose concentrations no longer change with time.

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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium

• The fact that the composition of the equilibrium mixture

remains constant with time does NOT mean that N2O4 and
NO2 stop reacting.
• The equilibrium is dynamic.
some N2O4 is always converting to NO2
and
some NO2 is always converting to N2O4

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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium
The equilibrium mixture results
because the reaction is reversible.

Double arrow
Reversible process

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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium

• At equilibrium, the rate at which NO2 forms in the forward

reaction equals the rate at which N2O4 forms in the reverse
reaction:

rearranging this equation gives:

Equilibrium
constant
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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium

• Important points are summarized as follows:

 At equilibrium, the concentrations of reactants and products no
longer change with time.
 For equilibrium to occur, neither reactants nor products can escape
from the system.
 At equilibrium, a particular ratio of concentration terms equals a
constant.
 For equilibrium to occur, it makes no difference whether we start with
reactants or with products, or even with some mixture of the two.

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1. Concept of chemical equilibrium

• Consider the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and

hydrogen:

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2. Equilibrium constant

• Suppose we have the general equilibrium equation:

A, B, D, and E are the chemical species involved in the reaction

a, b, d, e are the coefficients in the balanced chemical equation

• According to the law of mass action, the equilibrium condition is

described by the expression:

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 2. Equilibrium constant

Equilibrium constant

Subscript “c” in “Kc” indicates

using concentrations
Equilibrium-constant expression
or
Equilibrium expression

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2. Equilibrium constant

• The equilibrium constant can be expressed either in terms of:

 Molar concentrations ⇒ expressed as “Kc”.
 Partial pressure ⇒ expressed as “KP”.

• Expressing equilibrium constant in terms of partial pressure is done

when reactants and products are gases.

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2. Equilibrium constant

note that in general;

𝐾𝑐 ≠ 𝐾𝑝
However, we can calculate them from each other using the ideal gas
equation as follows;

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2. Equilibrium constant

Where ∆𝑛 is the change in the number of moles of gas in the

balanced chemical equation.

• It equals the sum of the coefficients of the gaseous products

minus the sum of the coefficients of the gaseous reactants:

• When 𝐾𝑐 = 𝐾𝑝 ?!!
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