Reactivity (chemistry) - Chemical Kinetics: Reaction Rate As Reactivity

Chemical Kinetics: Reaction Rate As Reactivity

The rate of any given reaction,

Reactants → Products

is governed by the rate law:

where the rate is the change in the molar concentration in one second in the rate-determining step of the reaction (the slowest step), is the product of the molar concentration of all the reactants raised to the correct order, known as the reaction order, and k is the reaction constant, which is constant for one given set of circumstances (generally temperature and pressure) and independent of concentration. The greater the reactivity of a compound the higher the value of k and the higher the rate. For instance, if,

A+B → C+D

Then:

where n is the reaction order of A, m is the reaction order of B, n+m is the reaction order of the full reaction, and k is the reaction constant.

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