CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIA Many chemical reactions involve an equilibrium process.

During an dynamic equilibrium, the rate of the forward reaction equals the rate of the reverse reaction. This means that both reactants and products will be present at any given point in time. The equilibrium may favor either the reactants or products. The extent to which the reaction proceeds towards products is measured by an equilibrium constant. This constant is a specific ratio of the products to the reactants. This ratio is often referred to as a mass action expression. Let's loo at a !generic! equilibrium reaction and its mass action expression.

The mass action expression consists of the product of the products, each raised to the power given by the coefficient in the balanced chemical equation, over the product of the reactants, each raised to the power given by the coefficient in the balanced chemical equation. This mass action expression is set equal to the equilibrium constant, "eq#

There are numerous types of equilibrium problems one may encounter, both qualitative and quantitative. $n the subsequent pages we will loo at these various types of problems.

Introduction
% burette, an apparatus for carrying out e.g. acid&base titration, is an important part of equilibrium chemistry. The concept of chemical equilibrium was developed after 'erthollet ()*+,- found that some chemical reactions are reversible. .or any reaction mixture to exist at equilibrium, the rates of the forward and bac ward (reverse- reactions are equal. $n the following chemical equation with arrows pointing both ways to indicate equilibrium, % and ' are reactant chemical species, / and T are product species, and 0, 1, 2, and 3 are the stoichiometric coefficients of the respective reactants and products# The equilibrium position of a reaction is said to lie !far to the right! if, at equilibrium, nearly all the reactants are consumed. 4onversely the equilibrium position is said to be !far to the left! if hardly any product is formed from the reactants.

5uldberg and 6aage ()*78-, building on 'erthollet9s ideas, proposed the law of mass action# where %, ', / and T are active masses and : and ; are rate constants. /ince at equilibrium forward and bac ward rates are equal# and the ratio of the rate constants is also a constant, now nown as an equilibrium constant. Dynamic <quilibrium Dynamic equilibrium occurs when the chemical reaction continues to proceed, but the amount of products and reactants remain constant. This is one type of chemical equilibrium.