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Law of Mass Action and the Equilibrium Constant.
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Law of Mass Action and the Equilibrium Constant In 1864 two Norwegian chemists, Cato Guldberg and Peter Waage proposed the law of mass action as a general description of the equilibrium condition. This mathematical expression holds that for a reversible reaction at equilibrium and at constant temperature, a certain ratio of reactant and product concentrations has a constant value, K (the equilibrium constant). Considering the following general reaction aA + bB cC + dD where a, b, c, and d are the stoichiometric coefficients for the reacting species A, B, C, and D, the law of mass action is represented by the following expression: [C]c[D]d K = [A]a[B]b where K is the equilibrium constant