Question

Question: What is the law of mass action?

Short answer

Answer

The equilibrium constant expression is defined by the law of mass action, which is a generic description of the equilibrium state.

Step-by-step solution

Chemical reaction

Consider a chemical reaction as shown below:

$\mathrm{kA}\rightleftharpoons \mathrm{mB}+\mathrm{nC}$

Here,

A is the reactant species.

B and C are the species of the product.

k, m, and n are the coefficients of A, B, and C, respectively.

Law of mass action

From the experimental observations of chemical reactions, the law of mass action is stated as a generic explanation of the equilibrium state.

According to the law of mass action, the equilibrium constant expression for this reaction is expressed as follows:

$\mathrm{K}\frac{{\left[\mathrm{B}\right]}^{\mathrm{m}}{\left[\mathrm{C}\right]}^{\mathrm{n}}}{{\left[\mathrm{A}\right]}^{\mathrm{k}}}$