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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: lokic on June 25, 2024, 04:55:58 AM

Title: Equilibrium problem
Post by: lokic on June 25, 2024, 04:55:58 AM
A student places a .400 mol sample of liquid CH3OH
into an evacuated, rigid 1liter
container and heats the container to 550 kelvin
. At this temperature, the methanol is completely vaporized and begins to decompose according to the equation above. When equilibrium is reached, 60.5
 percent of the original number of moles of CH3OH
 have decomposed.
Using molar concentrations, calculate the value of the equilibrium constant, Kc , for the reaction at 550 kelvin
 Write your answer using three significant figures.
my problem is nothing explicitly tells us which 1 of the 2 products are H2. yes 60% of .4 mol is .242. & yes - from .4 is  .158. but no context clues tell you which? the answer could just as easily be .1793 if .242 was squared. what context clues does it give? even chatGPT cant calrify.
Title: Re: Equilibrium problem
Post by: Borek on June 25, 2024, 06:10:58 AM
We don't see what these numbers you listed refer to, so it is not clear what you mean. In general it should be all in the reaction equation stoichiometry, but you haven't listed the reaction either. Knowing how much of the methanol decomposed you should be easily able to calculate amounts of all products involved.

even chatGPT cant calrify.

Don't rely on ChatGPT, in its current state it is a recipe for disaster. It will give you both correct and incorrect answers with the same level of self confidence, but you never know when it is right and when it hallucinates.