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Increasing temperature in system of dynamic equilibrium
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Adrian Lee
Increasing temperature in system of dynamic equilibrium
Shouldn't it clearly be the opposite, as increasing temperature favors the reverse reaction?
Yes, they made a mistake. For all the other scenarios, they paired a figure of the rate changes with a figure of the matching concentration changes. For this scenario (increase in temperature) they matched it with a correct figure of concentration changes when the temperature is decreased:
If you change the label in the figure posted by the OP, it would reflect what happens when increasing the temperature: Both rates increase, but the reverse rate increases by a larger factor, resulting in a net reverse reaction until equilibrium is reached again.
Here are sketches for the rate changes both for increase in temperature (low to high, upper panel) and decrease in temperature (back to low temperature, lower panel). As you can see, the reverse rate is more sensitive to temperature (higher activation energy because the product is lower in energy than the reactant for this exothermic reaction):
Shouldn't it clearly be the opposite, as increasing temperature favors the reverse reaction?
Yes, they made a mistake. For all the other scenarios, they paired a figure of the rate changes with a figure of the matching concentration changes. For this scenario (increase in temperature) they matched it with a correct figure of concentration changes when the temperature is decreased:
If you change the label in the figure posted by the OP, it would reflect what happens when increasing the temperature: Both rates increase, but the reverse rate increases by a larger factor, resulting in a net reverse reaction until equilibrium is reached again.
Here are sketches for the rate changes both for increase in temperature (low to high, upper panel) and decrease in temperature (back to low temperature, lower panel). As you can see, the reverse rate is more sensitive to temperature (higher activation energy because the product is lower in energy than the reactant for this exothermic reaction):
Yes, they made a mistake. For all the other scenarios, they paired a figure of the rate changes with a figure of the matching concentration changes. For this scenario (increase in temperature) they matched it with a correct figure of concentration changes when the temperature is decreased:
If you change the label in the figure posted by the OP, it would reflect what happens when increasing the temperature: Both rates increase, but the reverse rate increases by a larger factor, resulting in a net reverse reaction until equilibrium is reached again.
Here are sketches for the rate changes both for increase in temperature (low to high, upper panel) and decrease in temperature (back to low temperature, lower panel). As you can see, the reverse rate is more sensitive to temperature (higher activation energy because the product is lower in energy than the reactant for this exothermic reaction):
Yes, they made a mistake. For all the other scenarios, they paired a figure of the rate changes with a figure of the matching concentration changes. For this scenario (increase in temperature) they matched it with a correct figure of concentration changes when the temperature is decreased:
If you change the label in the figure posted by the OP, it would reflect what happens when increasing the temperature: Both rates increase, but the reverse rate increases by a larger factor, resulting in a net reverse reaction until equilibrium is reached again.
Here are sketches for the rate changes both for increase in temperature (low to high, upper panel) and decrease in temperature (back to low temperature, lower panel). As you can see, the reverse rate is more sensitive to temperature (higher activation energy because the product is lower in energy than the reactant for this exothermic reaction):
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