Gaseous acetic acid molecules have a certain tendency to form dimers. (A dimer is a molecule formed by the association of two identical, simpler molecules.) The equilibrium constant Kc at 25oC for this reaction is 3.2× 104.
a. If the initial concentration of CH3COOH monomer (the simpler molecule) is 4.0 × 104 M, what are the concentrations of monomer and dimer when the system comes to equilibrium? (The simpler quadratic equation is obtained by assuming that all of the acid molecules have dimerized and then some of it dissociates to monomer.)
b. Why do acetic acid molecules dimerize? What type of structure would you draw for the dimer?
c. As the temperature increases, would you expect the percentage of dimer to increase or decrease? Why?