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Ch.16 - Acid-Base Equilibria

Chapter 16, Problem 30c

Predict the products of the following acid–base reactions, and predict whether the equilibrium lies to the left or to the right of the reaction arrow: (c) HCO3-1aq2 + F-1aq2 Δ

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hi everyone for this problem. It reads complete the given reaction and identify if the equilibrium lies to the left or right. We have ammonium plus water. Okay, so we need to complete this reaction. So let's go ahead and rewrite this out. We have ammonium plus water. And let's identify our acids and our bases here. Okay, so ammonia is a weak base. Okay. Which means our water is going to be our acid. Okay. And this is at equilibrium. So we can go ahead and write our equilibrium arrows. And when we have a weak base, a weak base is going to accept a proton. Their proton except ear's. So we know that the water is going to donate the asset is going to donate a proton to our base. And so what that means is we're going to end up with an ammonium ion and hydroxide ion. Okay, so this is going to be our reaction. Our weak base in our acid produce the following. Okay. And the question is asking us to identify if the equilibrium lies to the left or to the right. Okay. So what this means is we need to identify which one is the stronger acid because our equilibrium favors the formation of the weaker acid or base. Okay, so we said that the ammonia is the weak base and water is the weak acid. Okay, on the other hand, we have our ammonium ion which is the stronger acid and this is a stronger acid than our water because of its positive charge. And the hydroxide ion is a stronger base than the ammonium because of its negative charge. Okay, so we can say this is weak acid. Okay. And so here the equilibrium is going to favor the formation of the weaker acid or base. And so here we see that our equilibrium is going to favor going to the left because that's where we have what's weak. Okay. And so out of the options, given we see that answer, choice A is going to be our correct answer. That is the completed reaction and the equilibrium will favor the left side. That's the end of this problem. I hope this was helpful.