When an inert gas is added to the equilibrium system at constant volume, then the total pressure will increase. But the concentration of reactants and products (ratio of their moles to the volume of the container) will not change. Hence, the position of the equilibrium will be unaffected.

An inert gas is a gas that has extremely low reactivity with other substances. The noble gases—helium, argon, neon, xenon, krypton, radon, and element 118 (Uuo)—exist in their elemental form and are found in Group 18 of the periodic table.

When an inert gas is added to the system in equilibrium at constant pressure, then the total volume will increase. Hence, the number of moles per unit volume of various reactants and products will decrease. Hence, the equilibrium will shift towards the direction in which there is increase in number of moles of gases.

Add an inert gas (one that is not involved in the reaction) to the constant-volume reaction mixture: This will increase the total pressure of the system, but will have no effect on the equilibrium condition. That is, there will be no effect on the concentrations or the partial pressures of reactants or products.

Hence, when an inert gas is added to the system in equilibrium at constant volume there will be no effect on the equilibrium.

Adding an inert gas into a gas-phase equilibrium at constant volume does not result in a shift. This is because the addition of a non-reactive gas does not change the partial pressures of the other gases in the container.

Finally, sometimes the volume is increased by adding an inert gas to the mixture at constant pressure. In this case the total pressure will stay constant, but the partial pressures of the reactants and products will decrease. This is because the total pressure now includes the pressure resulting from the inert gas.

Equilibrium constants aren’t changed if you change the pressure of the system. That means that if you increase the pressure, the position of equilibrium will move in such a way as to decrease the pressure again – if that is possible. It can do this by favouring the reaction which produces the fewer molecules.

When there is an increase in volume, the equilibrium will shift to favor the direction that produces more moles of gas.

Changing temperature Increasing the temperature decreases the value of the equilibrium constant. Where the forward reaction is endothermic, increasing the temperature increases the value of the equilibrium constant. The position of equilibrium also changes if you change the temperature.

Boyle’s law states that for a fixed amount of gas in an enclosed system at constant temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional. In other words, when one of the two variables is changed, the other variable is changed in the opposite direction. So if the volume increases, the pressure decreases.

Equilibrium constant depends on temperature and is independent of the actual quantities of reactants and products, the presence of a catalyst and the presence of inert material. It is also independent of concentrations, pressures and volumes of reactants and products.

The equilibrium constant cannot be 0. This is because this implies that the concentration of products is equal to 0 at equilibrium.

The true equilibrium constant has no units because they are supposed to be calculated using unitless values called activities. But people are lazy and it turns out that for an ideal solution, the molar concentration (without the units) is very close to the activity so we just go ahead and use molar concentrations.

The balance of incoming/outcoming energy change the concentration of reactants andproducts but not affect the equilibrium constant: the ratio of the concentrations in the given formula (that changes from reaction to reaction) remains constant, even the reactants and products concentration varies.

1) Equilibrium can be approached from either direction. 2) Kc does not depend on the initial concentrations of reactants and products.

As detailed in the above section, the position of equilibrium for a given reaction does not depend on the starting concentrations and so the value of the equilibrium constant is truly constant. It does, however, depend on the temperature of the reaction.

A reaction’s equilibrium constant, Keq, measures the extent to which reactants are converted to products. the higher the equilibrium constant is above 1, the greater the concentration of B relative to A. Reactions that go almost to completion have high equilibrium constants.

equilibrium constant

If Keq is less than 1, it means the concentrations of the reactants are greater than the products. If Keq is closed to the value of 1, then, that means there are roughly equal amounts of reactants and products at equilibrium. It also means neither forward nor the reverse reaction is favored.