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decreasing concentration on equilibrium?

if you decrease the concentration of e.g. the reactants how would this affect the position of the equilibrium and cause it to shift? how would you work this out? thanks
Original post by jonjoshelvey21
if you decrease the concentration of e.g. the reactants how would this affect the position of the equilibrium and cause it to shift? how would you work this out? thanks
The easiest way to think about this is whatever you do the equilibrium will try to put it back (or oppose the change) so if you decreased the reactants the equilibrium will try and increase them (this is le chantilier's principle)
this is done by shifting the equilibrium to the left to make more reactant
If you decrease the concentration of the reactants, the position of the equilibrium will shift to the left to make up for the concentration difference between the products and reactants and the vice versa for a decrease of concentration of products. Hope that's okay

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