LE CHATELIER'S

PRINCIPLE
Laura Morales Perea
Henry Louis Le Chatelier
8 October 1850 17 September
1936) was an influential
French chemist of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries.
Scientific work
In chemistry, Le Chatelier is best known for his work on his principle of chemical
equilibrium, Le Chatelier's principle and on varying solubility of salts in an ideal solution.
Le Chatelier also carried out extensive research on metallurgy and was one of the
founders of the technical newspaper La revue de mtallurgie (Metallurgy Review).
Le Chatelier in 1901 attempted the direct combination of the two gases nitrogen and
hydrogen at a pressure of 200 atm and 600 C in presence of metallic iron. The mixture
of gases was forced by an air compressor into a steel Berthelot bomb, where they and
the reduced iron catalyst were heated by a platinum spiral.
Le Chatelier's principle

In chemistry, Le Chatelier's principle also called Chatelier's principle or "The Equilibrium

Law", can be used to predict the effect of a change in conditions on a chemical
equilibrium. The principle is named after Henry Louis Le Chatelier and sometimes Karl
Ferdinand Braun who discovered it independently. It can be stated as:

When any system at equilibrium is subjected to change

in concentration, temperature, volume, or pressure, then the system readjusts itself to
(partially) counteract the effect of the applied change and a new equilibrium is
established.
 In chemistry, the principle is used to manipulate the outcomes of reversible reactions,
often to increase the yield of reactions. In pharmacology, the binding of ligands to the
receptor may shift the equilibrium according to Le Chatelier's principle, thereby
explaining the diverse phenomena of receptor activation and desensitization.
In economics, the principle has been generalized to help explain the price
equilibrium of efficient economic systems. In simultaneous equilibrium systems,
phenomena that are in apparent contradiction to Le Chatelier's principle can occur;
these can be resolved by the theory of response reactions.
Effect of change in
concentration
Changing the concentration of a chemical will shift the equilibrium to the side that
would reduce that change in concentration. The chemical system will attempt to
partially oppose the change affected to the original state of equilibrium. In turn, the rate
of reaction, extent, and yield of products will be altered corresponding to the impact on
the system.
This can be illustrated by the equilibrium of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas,
reacting to form methanol.

CO + 2 H2 CH3OH
Effect of change in temperature

The effect of changing the temperature in the equilibrium can be made clear by:
1.Incorporating heat as either a reactant or a product, and
2.Assuming that an increase in temperature increases the heat content of a system.
Take, for example, the reversible reaction of nitrogen gas with hydrogen gas to form ammonia:
N2(g) + 3 H2(g) 2 NH3(g) H = -92 kJ mol1
Because this reaction is exothermic, it produces heat:
N2(g) + 3 H2(g) 2 NH3(g) + heat
Effect of change in pressure

A change in pressure or volume will result in an attempt to restore equilibrium by

creating more or less moles of gas. For example, if the pressure in a system increases, or
the volume decreases, the equilibrium will shift to favor the side of the reaction that
involves fewer moles of gas. Similarly, if the volume of a system increases, or the
pressure decreases, the production of additional moles of gas will be favored.
Consider the reaction of nitrogen gas with hydrogen gas to form ammonia:
2 + 32 23 = 92 1
Lastly, for a gas-phase reaction in which the number of moles of gas on both sides of
the equation are equal, the system will be unaffected by changes in pressure,
since n=0.