




 |

|

| Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues >
2004
>
June
> |
|
In the Classroom
|
|
Advanced Chemistry Classroom and Laboratory
|
|
Pressure Dependence of Gas-Phase Reaction Rates
|
Stéphanie de Persis, Alain Dollet, and Francis Teyssandier
Institut de Science et de Génie des Matériaux et Procédés, CNRS UPR8521, TECNOSUD, Rambla de la Thermodynamique, F-66100, Perpignan, France
|
|

June 2004 Vol. 81 No. 6 p. 832
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
| Abstract |
|
The rate of some gas-phase reactions depends only on temperature, but the kinetics of many gas-phase reactions is also influenced by pressure, sometimes to a very large extent. However, despite its importance, this phenomenon remains generally unknown to most students. Sophisticated Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel calculations are commonly performed to predict the value of unimolecular and bimolecular rate coefficients at any temperature or pressure. This article is intended to show that only simple concepts are required to qualitatively explain and describe the pressure dependence of gas-phase reaction rates. Collisional energy transfer between reactant and third-body gas molecules (usually the bath-gas), on the one hand, and intramolecular rearrangements, on the other hand, are the competing processes that are responsible for the influence of pressure on gas-phase reaction kinetics. Depending on the relative weight of the two above processes, three domains of pressure can be distinguished that allow a simple mathematical description of the variations of reaction rate coefficients with pressure. The supplemental material available at JCE Online includes a full review of this topic.
|
| Supplement |
A detailed version of this article is available.
|
Contents |
JCE2004p0832W.doc (Microsoft Word)
|
Download |
|
|
| More Information |
 Citation
|
de Persis, Stéphanie; Dollet, Alain; Teyssandier, Francis. J. Chem. Educ. 2004 81 832.
|
 Keywords
|
Gases; Kinetics; Mechanisms
|
 History
|
Created:
Last Updated: |
May 2, 2004
January 21, 2005
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
| Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues >
2004
>
June
> Page
832
|
|

|


| JCE HS CLIC |
|
Our Secondary School editors work hard to distill all the JCE materials to produce a fraction of particular interest to high school teachers. We call it CLIC.
|

| Contributions Welcome |
| JCE welcomes your submission |

| Advertisers |
| In recent years we have worked hard to better match our advertisers with our readers. When shopping for chemistry education materials, visit our advertisers' WWW sites first. |

| Be An Ambassador |
| Take JCE along on your outreach missions. Copies of the Journal, guest access to JCE Online, our publications catalog, and more are available for your participants. |

|