Which of the following statements best describes a system at chemical equilibrium?

Question

The system consumes energy at a steady rate.
The system releases energy at a steady rate.
The kinetic energy of the system is zero.
The system can do no work.

Answer 1

The statement that best describes a system at chemical equilibrium is:

The system can do no work.

At equilibrium, the forward and reverse reactions occur at the same rate, leading to a stable concentration of reactants and products. While energy may still be involved in the reactions, there is no net change, and thus the system is effectively not able to do work in terms of driving the reaction towards either products or reactants.