The Student Room Group

(Seemingly Complicated) Reverse Chemical Equilibria

I've had to do a homework on Chemical equilibria and could do them all except for the one below. I just ended up going into rather complicated maths quadratic equations which then gave the wrong answer. I was wondering if anyone would know an efficient way of getting the answer. Any help greatly appreciated.:yep:

CO and Cl2 react to form COCl2. A mixture was prepared containing 0.2mol of CO and 0.1mol of Cl2 in a 3dm^3 vessel. Kc = 0.410
Calculate COCl2 at equilibrium.
you need to do the quadratic I'm afraid :p:
one2three_abc
I've had to do a homework on Chemical equilibria and could do them all except for the one below. I just ended up going into rather complicated maths quadratic equations which then gave the wrong answer. I was wondering if anyone would know an efficient way of getting the answer. Any help greatly appreciated.:yep:

CO and Cl2 react to form COCl2. A mixture was prepared containing 0.2mol of CO and 0.1mol of Cl2 in a 3dm^3 vessel. Kc = 0.410
Calculate COCl2 at equilibrium.


OK woolly non-maths way...

the equilibrium constant is low therefore you assume that there is very little product formed and keep the initial concentrations of reactants unchanged.

let moles of COCl2 at equilibrium be z

concentration of COCl2 = z/3
concentration of CO = 0.2/3
concentration of Cl2 = 0.1/3

now Kc = 3z / (0.1 x 0.2) = 0.41

z = [0.41 x 0.02]/3 = 0.00273 moles = 0.00091 moles per litre
charco
OK woolly non-maths way...

the equilibrium constant is low therefore you assume that there is very little product formed and keep the initial concentrations of reactants unchanged.

let moles of COCl2 at equilibrium be z

concentration of COCl2 = z/3
concentration of CO = 0.2/3
concentration of Cl2 = 0.1/3

now Kc = 3z / (0.1 x 0.2) = 0.41

z = [0.41 x 0.02]/3 = 0.00273 moles = 0.00091 moles per litre


Ah, I did it a hideously complicated maths way and got the correct answer (fed it back through equation) and It was what you got! :woo:
Thanks anyway, now I can see how to do it through an easier method.

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