2021•Oxford University Press eBooksRequires access
Reaction kinetics
Andrew D. Burrows, John Holman, S.J. Lancaster, Tina Overton, Andrew Parsons, Gwen Pilling, Gareth J. Price
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Abstract
This chapter emphasizes the importance of studying reaction kinetics which has an importance in many branches of chemistry. Reaction kinetics can provide fundamental information about the interactions and energy changes that take place at a molecular level during an elementary reaction. The chapter highlights what is meant by the rate of a reaction, including how to write a differential equation for the rate in terms of the consumption of a reactant or formation of a product and the rate equation for an elementary reaction from the stoichiometric chemical equation. It analyses the mechanism of a complex reaction that involves a series of elementary reactions and shows that the rate equation must be determined experimentally. It also explains how kinetic studies can be used as evidence for reaction mechanisms and why some reactions show zero order kinetics.