Question

How do you write a canonical sum of products?

Answer 1

Writing a canonical sum of products—known as an equilibrium constant expression—entails identifying reactants and products, using their concentrations raised to their stoichiometric coefficients in the expression, and excluding solids which are assigned a value of 1.

Step-by-step explanation:

To write a canonical sum of products, also known as the equilibrium constant expression, you follow a specific sequence of steps:

1. Identify the reactants and the products in the chemical reaction and write their chemical formulas.
2. Refer to the balanced chemical equation and place the arithmetic product of the concentrations of the products (raised to their stoichiometric coefficients) in the numerator.
3. Place the product of the concentrations of the reactants (raised to their stoichiometric coefficients) in the denominator.
4. If a product or reactant is in a solid state, it is defined to have a value of 1 and thus may not appear in the expression.

For instance, for a reaction A + B → C (solid) + D, where C is solid, the equilibrium expression would look like: [D] / ([A] * [B]). Here, [D] is the concentration of product D, and [A] and [B] are the concentrations of reactants A and B, respectively.

It is also important to understand how to notate products and quotients in scientific notation when dealing with concentrations in a chemical equation.