Rate Lab
Design kinetic experiments. Extract reaction orders, half-lives and activation behaviour.
Kinetics apparatus
Concept figure: reaction energy profile
Higher activation energy gives stronger temperature dependence at fixed pre-exponential factor.
Analyse the rate
Live concentration plot
Arrhenius plot
The chemistry
Rate law: rate = k[A]ᵐ[B]ⁿ. Compare experiments where just one initial concentration changes.
Units of k: (mol/dm³)^(1 − m − n) s⁻¹. For total order zero: mol dm⁻³ s⁻¹; first: s⁻¹; second: dm³ mol⁻¹ s⁻¹; third: dm⁶ mol⁻² s⁻¹.
First-order decay: [A] = [A]₀exp(−kt), t½ = ln 2 / k.
Arrhenius: k = A exp(−Eₐ/RT). Thus ln k = ln A − (Eₐ/R)(1/T), with R = 8.31 J mol⁻¹ K⁻¹.
The initial-rate experiments use a synthetic exact power-law model. Other plots use a first-order concentration-decay illustration with the corresponding positive k in s⁻¹. These are separate kinetic scenarios.