Question

I'm very confused regarding equilibrium...
"(...) equilibrium could be disrupted by a decrease in concentration of the product. As the rate of the backward reaction is now decreased there will be a shift in equilibrium in favour of the products. (...) removal of a product causes equilibrium to adjust by shifting to the right." (244)

But I thought that that equilibrium shifted to the right when a reactant was removed. Does it always shift towards the products when there are changes in the concentration?

Answer 1

It doesn't always shift toward products when concentration is changed, because it depends on which concentration changes. Also if reactant is removed there is a shift to the left, not the right.

Conceptually, think of it like a balanced scale:
If you removed reactants, then products would become "heavier,"

so you need to shift to the left to make the reactants "heavier" again to balance it out.