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Imagine a box filled with Lego bricks. You pick up a handful and start piecing them together to build a house. After a while, you stop and shake your head - building a chemical laboratory would be much cooler. You start taking your house apart, separating the bricks, and tossing them back into the pile. Soon, you are back where you started - faced with a big box of Lego, ready to be turned into another creation and used again and again. No matter what you build, you are always able to take the structure apart when you are finished and make something new. This is an example of a reversible reaction.
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Sign up for freeIn a reversible reaction, there is a net production of reactants when ____.
What is the name of the reaction that goes from reactants to products in a reversible reaction?
What is the name of the reaction that goes from products to reactants in a reversible reaction?
In a reversible reaction, there is no net production of either reactants or products when ____.
True or false? Reversible reactions always reach dynamic equilibrium.
Which of the following is true about a dynamic equilibrium?
Which of the following is true about a dynamic equilibrium?
Which of the following are reversible reactions?
True or false? The ratio of reactants to products in a reversible reaction in a closed system under certain conditions is fixed.
In a reversible reaction, there is a net production of products when ____.
In a reversible reaction, there is a net production of reactants when ____.
What is the name of the reaction that goes from reactants to products in a reversible reaction?
What is the name of the reaction that goes from products to reactants in a reversible reaction?
In a reversible reaction, there is no net production of either reactants or products when ____.
True or false? Reversible reactions always reach dynamic equilibrium.
Which of the following is true about a dynamic equilibrium?
Which of the following is true about a dynamic equilibrium?
Which of the following are reversible reactions?
True or false? The ratio of reactants to products in a reversible reaction in a closed system under certain conditions is fixed.
In a reversible reaction, there is a net production of products when ____.
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Team Reversible Reaction Teachers
Some reactions only occur in one direction. The reactants react to form products, and that's it - the reaction is over. But in some cases, the products can react to form the reactants once again. We call these reactions reversible reactions.
A reversible reaction is a chemical reaction in which the reactants form products, which in turn can react to form the reactants once again.
You can look at a reversible reaction as being made up of two separate reactions:
Using our Lego analogy, combining the bricks together is like the forward reaction. We take the reactants, which are Lego bricks, and stack them up to build our product, the house. Taking the structure apart is like the backward reaction. We take the product, the house, and break it back down into the reactants, the Lego bricks. These two reactions combine to give one overall reversible reaction.
So, we know that reversible reactions are made up of two separate reactions: the forward reaction and the backward reaction. Instead of writing both reactions out individually, we can combine them using two half-headed arrows to show a reversible reaction: ⇌
Here's an example. The reactants A and B react to form the product C. This is the forward reaction. C can then break down to give A and B again. This is the backward reaction. We can represent this reversible reaction using two separate equations, or we can combine them to give one overall equation:
Forward reaction:
Backward reaction:
Overall equation:
Let's move on to look at some real-life examples of reversible reactions.
One visually interesting example is the hydration of cobalt(II) chloride. In its anhydrous form, it is blue. If you hydrate it, it turns pink. Evaporating the water off turns it back to its blue, anhydrous form once again. This makes cobalt(II) chloride a great test for water.
Forward reaction:
Backward reaction:
Overall equation:
Hydrating cobalt (II) chloride. Anna Brewer, Vaia Original
A biological example of a reversible reaction occurs in hemoglobin. Hemoglobin travels around in your blood, transporting oxygen from your lungs to your cells and waste carbon dioxide from your cells to your lungs. It does this by binding to the gas molecules with its four binding sites. You can think of the individual hemoglobin, oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules as the reactants and the bound hemoglobin molecule as the product. Once the bound hemoglobin molecule has reached its destination, it releases the gas molecules, breaking apart into the reactants once again.
If you leave the species involved in a reversible reaction in a closed system for a period of time, eventually, something particular will happen. If you start with high amounts of the reactants, initially you'll see lots of the forward reaction occurring. But as you produce more and more of the products, eventually the backward reaction starts to happen too. If you start with lots of the products, then the reverse happens - there'll initially be lots of the backward reaction, but as you produce more and more of the reactants, the forward reaction happens too. But no matter which side you start from, be it with lots of the reactants or lots of the products, eventually you'll reach a point of stability. Here, the rate of the forward reaction and the rate of the backward reaction is the same and the concentrations of reactants and products don't change. We call this a dynamic equilibrium.
You can learn more about dynamic equilibria in the self-titled article "Dynamic Equilibrium".
Under certain conditions, a dynamic equilibrium always has a certain ratio of reactants to products. It doesn't matter whether you start with lots of reactants or lots of products - provided you keep variables like temperature and concentration the same, you'll end up with the same equilibrium. We express the ratio of reactants to products in a system at equilibrium using the equilibrium constant, Keq.
There are many different types of equilibrium constant. For example, Kc is based on the ratio of concentrations at equilibrium whilst Kp measures partial pressure. You'll find out all about these constants in the article "Equilibrium Constant".
Finally, we can use our knowledge of reversible reactions and equilibria to predict the direction of a reversible reaction and its effect on the ratio of reactants to products.
That's the end of this article. You should now feel confident defining reversible reactions and using the terms forward reaction and backward reaction. You should also be able to explain how a reversible reaction reaches equilibrium.
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What is an example of a reversible reaction?
An example of a reversible reaction is the evaporation of water from the surface of a sealed beaker. As some of the water evaporates, some of the water vapor in the beaker also condenses back into liquid form.
What is the difference between a reversible reaction and a forward reaction?
A reversible reaction is made up of two reactions: the forward reaction and the backward reaction. The forward reaction is the reaction that turns the reactants on the left into the products on the right of the equation. The backward reaction is the opposite reaction - it turns the products on the right to the reactants on the left.
What is the symbol for a reversible reaction?
To show a reversible reaction, we use two half-headed arrows: ⇌
How do you write a reversible reaction?
A reversible reaction is made up from two separate reactions, with one being the reverse of the other. To write a reversible reaction, write out one of its constituent reactions as usual. However, instead of drawing a single arrow going from reactants to products, you show that it is reversible by drawing two half-headed arrows: ⇌ .
For example, you might want to show the melting of ice. Liquid water can freeze back into solid ice, so this is a reversible reaction. You would show the reaction with the following equation: H2O(s) ⇌ H2O(l)
Is a reversible reaction spontaneous in both directions?
Yes - a reversible reaction is spontaneous in both directions. However, we can favor one reaction over the other by changing the conditions of the system. You'll learn more about this in the article Le Chatelier's Principle.
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