9: Processes Start Out Under Kinetic Control — Read

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9.1: Overview and Objectives
This page compares chemical reactions to a demolition derby, focusing on atomic and molecular collisions that drive reactions. It highlights the significance of effective collisions for reaction rates and compositions under kinetic control. The objectives include investigating reaction rates and laws, creating reaction coordinate diagrams, and analyzing how catalysts and temperature influence reaction kinetics.
9.2: Chemical Reaction Rates
The rate of a reaction can be expressed either in terms of the decrease in the amount of a reactant or the increase in the amount of a product per unit time. Relations between different rate expressions for a given reaction are derived directly from the stoichiometric coefficients of the equation representing the reaction.
9.3: Rate Laws
Rate laws provide a mathematical description of how changes in the amount of a substance affect the rate of a chemical reaction. Rate laws are determined experimentally and cannot be predicted by reaction stoichiometry. The order of reaction describes how much a change in the amount of each substance affects the overall rate, and the overall order of a reaction is the sum of the orders for each substance present in the reaction.
9.4: Integrated Rate Laws
Differential rate laws can be determined by the method of initial rates or other methods. We measure values for the initial rates of a reaction at different concentrations of the reactants. From these measurements, we determine the order of the reaction in each reactant. Integrated rate laws are determined by integration of the corresponding differential rate laws. Rate constants for those rate laws are determined from measurements of concentration at various times during a reaction.
9.5: Factors Affecting Reaction Rates
The rate of a chemical reaction is affected by several parameters. Reactions involving two phases proceed more rapidly when there is greater surface area contact. If temperature or reactant concentration is increased, the rate of a given reaction generally increases as well. A catalyst can increase the rate of a reaction by providing an alternative pathway that causes the activation energy of the reaction to decrease.
9.6: Catalysis
Catalysts affect the rate of a chemical reaction by altering its mechanism to provide a lower activation energy. Catalysts can be homogenous (in the same phase as the reactants) or heterogeneous (a different phase than the reactants).
9.7: Collision Theory
Chemical reactions require collisions between reactant species. These reactant collisions must be of proper orientation and sufficient energy in order to result in product formation. Collision theory provides a simple but effective explanation for the effect of many experimental parameters on reaction rates. The Arrhenius equation describes the relation between a reaction’s rate constant and its activation energy, temperature, and dependence on collision orientation.
9.8: Reaction Mechanisms
The sequence of individual steps, or elementary reactions, by which reactants are converted into products during the course of a reaction is called the reaction mechanism. The overall rate of a reaction is determined by the rate of the slowest step, called the rate-determining step. Unimolecular elementary reactions have first-order rate laws, while bimolecular elementary reactions have second-order rate laws.

This page titled 9: Processes Start Out Under Kinetic Control was last modified on Thu, 13 Aug 2026 01:22:18 GMT and is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kathy Davis, Terrie Salupo-Bryant, Mark Bryant and Jeff Osborne.

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