CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

Do you think we will be tested on our knowledge of catalysts on the final? If so, what are potential questions that could show up?

Maybe we would have to identify which substance is a catalyst, given steps of a reaction. Or perhaps conceptual questions about the effect of a catalyst?

if there is a question with a catalyst, I think it would be to identify what species is the catalyst in a reaction mechanism

probably when given some sort of mechanism you would need to be able to tell the difference between a catalyst and an intermediate. So the catalyst is not created but the intermediate is created and then is then used.

can someone explain how you know something is a catalyst? im confused on that.

I would imagine there wouldn't be an incredibly difficult question on catalysts, especially one requiring math, since we only went over catalysts very briefly in class.

Yeah, we haven't gone over how catalyst's act on the system mathematically, unless the problem tells us specifically that the catalyst lowers the Ea by x amount.

We would probably have to know some of the basics of a catalyst, and how to identify if there is one. In an energy graph, you would see the peak of the graph, or activation energy, lower if there is a catalyst. The catalyst increases the rates of both the forward and reverse reactions. But catalysts don't change the DeltaH of the reaction at all.