Concentration (Lever)

Definition

The lever describing how changing the amount of any dissolved carbonate species redistributes the equilibrium in both directions at once.

Unlike pH, the carbonate equilibrium is a multi-faceted see-saw, so adding bicarbonate redistributes some of that increase toward CO2/H2CO3 on one end and toward carbonate on the other. The concentration of each species matters tremendously but is typically not the most important lever. pH usually overrides it as the dominant practical predictor of speciation.

Related concepts

The Four Levers · pH (Lever) · Carbonate Speciation

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Part of The Blueprint of Water · 🧪 chemistry