The Slowest Step
Moderators: Chem_Mod, Chem_Admin
-
- Posts: 50
- Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:18 am
The Slowest Step
I know what the slowest step is, but I'm still having trouble how you find the slowest step?
-
- Posts: 87
- Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:00 pm
- Been upvoted: 1 time
Re: The Slowest Step
It will almost always tell you which step is the slowest since the speed of each elementary step is determined experimentally.
Re: The Slowest Step
It will definitely tell you, but also remember that when making rate laws if a reactant in the slowest step is an intermediate compound you have to replace it with previous reactants that made the intermidiate.
-
- Posts: 100
- Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:31 pm
Re: The Slowest Step
The slow step is normally indicated. The reaction rate is based off the slow step so its important to use that one and identify it when writing your rate law. As mentioned above the slow step may include an intermediate, so you would have to work out the substitution of that compound in your actual rate law.
-
- Posts: 121
- Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:35 pm
Re: The Slowest Step
The speed of each step is usually given. However, if looking to figure out experimentally, what we would do is get the reactants and react a small amount of one with an excess of others to study the rate of that one reactant, and repeat for all the reactants. Then, examine what the slowest rate is and see what it is reacting with. This will lead to understanding the mechanism and therefore the speed of steps can be determined.
-
- Posts: 54
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:22 am
Re: The Slowest Step
The slow step in an elementary reaction will just be the single mechanism. In a multistep mechanism the slow step can be found by deriving the rate laws of all the individual steps and then the rate law that corresponds to the overall reaction rate law is the slow step. The slow step determines the reaction rate in all of these scenarios.
-
- Posts: 107
- Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:38 pm
Re: The Slowest Step
The slowest step is typically given to you. If you are given a diagram, the slow step would be the one with the greatest activation energy.
Return to “Method of Initial Rates (To Determine n and k)”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests