Question

Question #4fe75

Answer 1

The stability constant of metal complexes is actually an equilibrium constant that describes the overall process of the formation of a metal complex in a solution.

This formation process is usually a substitution reaction in which one ligand replaces another ligand. In your case, EDTA, which is a hexadentate ligand (it has 6 lone pairs of electrons), replaces water, a simple ligand.

The overall reaction looks like this - all the species are in aquesous solution, except water, of course

`[Ni[(H_2O)_6]^(2+) + EDTA^(4-) rightleftharpoons [Ni(EDTA)]^(2-) + 6H_2O`

To write the stability constant for this reaction you can use the same rules as you would for writing classic equilibrium constants - the concentrations of the products (water is excluded) divided by the concentration of the reactants

`K_("stab") = ([[Ni(EDTA)]^(2-)])/([Ni[(H_2O)_6]^(2+)] * [EDTA^(4-)])`