CHM 1046L Spring 2023

Pre-Lab for Module 6 (Chemical Equilibrium Part 2)

Equilibrium Worksheet – Finding equilibrium concentrations and finding Kc

 Keep in mind that you can only calculate the equilibrium constant from
equilibrium concentrations and vice-versa.
 So if the problem only has initial (or non-equilibrium) concentrations, you first
need to calculate the equilibrium concentrations before finding the equilibrium
constant.
 Alternatively you can also use the initial (or non-equilibrium) concentrations
and the equilibrium constant to determine equilibrium concentrations.
 We can do this because stoichiometry relates the reactants to the products and
we can use this to determine how much products is formed and how much
reactant is lost.

Calculate equilibrium concentrations and the equilibrium constant from given initial
concentrations and the equilibrium concentration of a single reactant or product.
A flask is filled with 2.00 M CO2, which decomposes according to the following reaction
2CO2 (g)   2CO (g) + O2 (g)
At the very beginning of the reaction how much CO2 will be present in the flask initially?
At the very beginning of the reaction how much CO and O2 will be present in the flask initially?

Is the reaction currently at equilibrium? Why?

Which direction will the reaction shift to reach equilibrium?

Will reactants be consumed or created? Would that be a + or a -?

Will products be consumed or created? Would that be a + or a -?

In a sentence describe what is happening in the reaction in terms of stoichiometry.

If a change of one mole was represented by x what would be the change of each of the reactants
and products (do not forget the signs).
Change in CO2 =
Change in CO =
Change in O2 =

In the table below fill in the blanks based on what you already know

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2CO2 (g)   2CO (g) + O2 (g)

CO2 CO O2

Initial concentration (I)

Change in concentration (C)

Equilibrium concentration (E)

(add rows I and C)

Problem

A flask is filled with 2.00 M CO2, which decomposes according to the following reaction
2CO2 (g)   2CO (g) + O2 (g)
Find the equilibrium constant of the reaction of the flask contains 0.90 M CO2 at equilibrium.
SHOW ALL YOUR WORK!

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Part 1: Phase 1
The chemical reaction for the formation of the red-orange iron(III) thiocyanate complex ion
is
-
Fe (aq) + SCN (aq) <==> [FeSCN ] (aq)
3+ 2+

What is the source of the Fe3+ ions?

-
What is the source of the SCN ions?

The equilibrium constant for this reaction is given by

The stock solution in the stock beaker contains 10.00 mL of  0.1000 M iron(III) nitrate
solution, 10.00 mL of 0.1000 M potassium thiocyanate solution, and 10.00 mL of 0.5000 M
nitric acid solution.

What is the total volume of the stock solution? SHOW YOUR WORK!

How many moles of iron (III) nitrate are present in the stock solution? SHOW YOUR WORK!

How many moles of potassium thiocyanate are present in the stock solution? SHOW YOUR
WORK!

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CHM 1046L Spring 2023

Based on the moles of iron (III) nitrate and moles of potassium thiocyanate, how many
moles of iron (III) thiocyanate do you expect to be formed (Hint: think limiting reagent)? We
can do it this time because we have enough of one reagent to force the reaction to
completion. SHOW YOUR WORK!

Once you determine the moles of iron (III) thiocyanate formed, determine the concentration of
iron (III) thiocyanate in the final solution. SHOW YOUR WORK!

Part 1: Phase 2
1) What is the concentration of iron (III) thiocyanate in solution 2 that contains 10.00 mL
of stock solution, labeled “Solution 1” (you just calculated the concentration of this
solution in phase 1) and 40.00 mL of nitric acid solution? SHOW YOUR WORK!

2) What is the concentration of iron (III) thiocyanate in solution 3 containing 10.00 mL of

solution 2 (you just calculated the concentration of this solution in phase 2 question
1) and 40.00 mL of nitric acid solution? SHOW YOUR WORK!

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3) What is the concentration of iron (III) thiocyanate in solution 4 containing 10.00 mL of

solution 3 (you just calculated the concentration of this solution in phase 2 question
2) and 40.00 mL of nitric acid solution? SHOW YOUR WORK!

Which substance did you use as the background blank to calibrate the spectrophotometer?
Explain your reasoning.

Part 2

No calculations required.

Part 3

We will only be doing calculations for Solution 1 going forward. You will do the calculations
for Solutions 2 and 3 on your own. That should be relatively easier once we go through the
calculation for Solution 1 here.

Solution 1 calculations

1) Solution 1 contains 10.00 mL of 0.002 M iron (III) nitrate solution, 4.00 mL of

0.002 M potassium thiocyanate solution, and 6.00 mL of 0.05 M nitric acid solution.

a) Calculate the concentration of iron (III) nitrate in the final solution in Solution 1.
SHOW ALL WORK!

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b) Calculate the concentration of potassium thiocyanate in the final solution in

Solution 1. SHOW ALL WORK!

Summarize the concentration of iron (III) nitrate and concentration of potassium thiocyanate
in Solution 1 from your calculations in questions 1a and 1b above. You can fill in the same
for Solutions 2-3 later after doing the calculations on your own time.

Solution mL of iron mL of mL of M of iron M of Absorbance

# (III) nitrate potassium nitric (III) potassium of the
thiocyanate acid nitrate in thiocyanate solution
the final in the final
solution solution
1
2
3

You cannot do the limiting reagent thing here because you do not know that one reagent is in
so much excess like before that the reaction will go to completion. So you must calculate
the concentration of the [FeSCN 2+ ] from the graph you created before.

Is the absorbance value of Solution 1 within the range of values on the graph you created
using the data from Phase 2? So can you use this absorbance value to determine the
concentration of [FeSCN 2+ ] from the graph? (think about the definition of the slope and what
the x and y axis are in this case and how it relates to the Beer-Lambert law).

Doing the calculation to find the equilibrium constant

Consider Solution 1 of Part 3,
What is the concentration of iron (III) nitrate aka iron (Fe 3+ ) ions in this tube?

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-
What is the concentration of potassium thiocyanate aka thiocyanate ions (SCN ) ions in this
tube?

Refer back to the graph produced for the Pre-lab Assignment to solve for [FeSCN 2+ ]

According to Beer and Lambert’s law

A = l C
A = absorbance
 = molar absorptivity
l = optical path length in cm (usually 1 cm is the length of the cuvettes used)
C = concentration

The equation of a line is y = mx + b

Where
y = value for the Y axis
x = value of the X axis
m = slope
b = y intercept

When the graph passes through the origin, the y intercept (b) is zero.

So your equation becomes y = mx

What is the y axis in this case?

What is the x axis in this case?

y = mx
A = l C

You can get the value of ( x l) from the slope of the graph and so can use this to find
concentration given the absorption and vice versa.

What is the value of the slope from the graph?

What is the concentration of iron (III) thiocyanate in this tube calculated from the graph?
SHOW ALL WORK!

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Making an ICE table

-
A flask is filled with Fe3+ and SCN , which decomposes according to the following reaction
-
Fe3+ (aq) + SCN (aq) <==> [FeSCN2+] (aq)
At the very beginning of the reaction how much Fe3+ will be present in the flask initially? You
did this calculation and put down the value previously.

-
At the very beginning of the reaction how much SCN will be present in the flask initially? You
did this calculation and put down the value previously.
At the very beginning of the reaction how much [FeSCN2+] will be present in the flask initially?
Think about how much product will be present at the very beginning of the reaction.

Was the reaction at equilibrium when the reaction started? Why?

Which direction will the reaction shift to reach equilibrium?

Will reactants be consumed or created? Would that be a + or a -?

Will products be consumed or created? Would that be a + or a -?

In a sentence describe what is happening in the reaction in terms of stoichiometry.

If a change of one mole was represented by x what would be the change of each of the reactants
and products (do not forget the signs).
Change in Fe3+ =
-
Change in SCN =
Change in [FeSCN2+] =

In the table below fill in the blanks based on what you already know
-
Fe3+ (aq) + SCN (aq) <==> [FeSCN2+] (aq)

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Fe3 SCN - [FeSCN2+]

Initial concentration (I)

Change in concentration (C)

(in terms of x)
Equilibrium concentration (E)
(add rows I and C)

We know the value of x because this is the concentration of [FeSCN2+] which you calculated
from the graph. So you can use this to calculate the value of x and therefore the equilibrium
concentrations of Fe3+ and SCN-. SHOW ALL YOUR WORK!

[Fe3+]eq =

[SCN-]eq =

[FeSCN2+]eq =

Now that you have these equilibrium concentrations (values) plug them into the equilibrium
constant expression to calculate the value of Kc. SHOW ALL YOUR WORK!

This is the value of Kc that you found from Solution 1

Do you expect the value of Kc that you will find from Solutions 2-3 to be around this number or
be different from the number you just determined? Why or why not? Justify and explain your
reasoning.

Before you leave the lab, you need to do the same calculation that you did for solution 1
(beginning of Part 3 on page 5. Use this worksheet as a template to do those calculations on
solutions 2 and 3 and calculate an average value of Kc from all the 3 values.

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Make sure you show the calculation showing how you determined the average. SHOW ALL
YOUR WORK!

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