Question

Silver chloride (AgCl) is a white solid. For the equilibrium reaction AgCl(s) = Ag+(aq) + Cl‐(aq) The Ksp for AgCl = 1.6 * 10‐10. At equilibrium, would you expect to have more silver and chloride ions or more solid silver chloride? Explain.

Answer 1

For the reaction
Ag+(aq) + Cl-(aq) → AgCl(s)

having a Keq = 6 x 10^9 means that the reaction has gone pretty much to completion, which heavily favors the product(s).

In this case you would expect almost all solid silver chloride precipitate and almost no silver or chloride ions in solution. (Which makes sense, since silver chloride is notorious for being insoluble in water.

That depends.

Imagine this thought experiment. You start with 0.01 mol of silver chloride suspended in a liter of water. Most of the silver chloride will be in the solid form, with just a few ions floating around in the solution. Now filter the solution. The filtrate will not have ANY solid silver chloride but both silver ions and chloride ions will be present in solution.

So, it depends.