I'm a little confused on this question from Achiever. It's number 43 in the gen chem section.
What is the concentration of O2 in equilibrium with 0.5 mol/liter of SO3 if the equilibrium constant at certain fixed temperature is 500 liter per mole?
Then they give the balanced equation
2 SO2 + O2 --> 2 SO3
Solution:
K = [SO3]^2 / [SO2]^2 [O2]^2
This makes perfect sense, but they set [O2] = y and [SO2] = 2y
Why would SO2 be 2y? I thought that the coefficient was already taken into account squaring the concentration? So basically they have 0.5^2/ (2y)^2 (y^2) but I thought it would be
0.5^2 / (y^2)(y^2)
There answer was 0.05 btw
Thanks for the help
What is the concentration of O2 in equilibrium with 0.5 mol/liter of SO3 if the equilibrium constant at certain fixed temperature is 500 liter per mole?
Then they give the balanced equation
2 SO2 + O2 --> 2 SO3
Solution:
K = [SO3]^2 / [SO2]^2 [O2]^2
This makes perfect sense, but they set [O2] = y and [SO2] = 2y
Why would SO2 be 2y? I thought that the coefficient was already taken into account squaring the concentration? So basically they have 0.5^2/ (2y)^2 (y^2) but I thought it would be
0.5^2 / (y^2)(y^2)
There answer was 0.05 btw
Thanks for the help