Orders

• How can you measure rate of reaction?

  change of concentration

  • increase of concentration of a product over time
  • decrease of concentration of a reactant over time
• rate of reaction is proportional to the concentration of a particular reactant raised to a power
• order of a reactant shows how the concentration of a chemical affects the rate of a reaction

  • power to which the concentration is raised to in the equation
• equation for the rate of reaction can only be determined experimentally

  • products and catalysts may be included
• rate of reaction = k[A]ᵐ[B]ⁿ
• zero order

  changing the concentration of the chemical has no effect on the rate of reaction

  • not included in the rate equation
  • [C]⁰ = 1
• first order

  concentration of the chemical is directly proportional to the rate of reaction

  • e.g doubling the concentration of reactant doubles the rate of reaction
  • [A]¹
• second order

  rate is directly proportional to the square of the concentration of that chemical

  • e.g doubling concentration means rate of reaction increases by a factor of four
  • [A]²
• overall order is the sum of the powers of the reactants in the rate equation