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? asked in Science & MathematicsChemistry · 1 decade ago

Equilibrium concentration at 1000K?

For the following reaction, Kc = 255 at 1000K.

CO (g) + Cl2 (g) <--> COCl2 (g)

A reaction mixture initially contains a CO concentration of 0.1550 M and a Cl2 concentration of 0.170 M at 1000K.

What is the equilibrium concentration of CO at 1000K?

What is the equilibrium concentration of Cl2 at 1000K?

What is the equilibrium concentration of COCl2 at 1000K?

I got it set up in the ICE table like this:

CO + Cl2 <--> COCl2

I 0.1150 0.170 0

C -x -x +x

E 0.1150-x 0.170-x x

And I have the formula as:

255 = x / ((0.1150-x)(0.170-x))

But this is where I run into problems. For some reason, no matter what I do, I always get the wrong answer. Can someone figure this through step-by-step please?

1 Answer

Relevance
  • DavidB
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    your set up to this point

    255 = x / ((0.1150-x)(0.170-x))

    seems correct. how are you solving this equation? - Kc is quite large so we cannot use the approximation and need to solve the quadratic. First multiply out the terms to get the quadratic in a solvable form

    this give us

    255x^2 - 73.675x + 4.985 = 0

    solve the quadratic for x and use it to find the equilibrium concentrations.

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