Question

I am a high school student from Belgium and I am conducting a study on the kinetics of the degradation of a zorubinein the presence of a catalyst, namely, ZnO. The order of the reaction with respect to this catalyst is 0.457. I was told that my order of reaction must be a fraction or a whole number. Does this mean that the order of the reaction with respect to ZnO must be a nice fraction like 1/2,1/4,1/3, etc, or can it be any fraction such as 457/1000?

Answer 1

The order of reaction can be any real number, including non-integer fractions like 0.457. Reaction orders are used to describe how the reaction rate is affected by the concentration of a catalyst or reactant. Half-lives also vary with reaction orders, with first-order reactions having concentration-independent half-lives.

Step-by-step explanation:

The order of reaction with respect to a catalyst or reactant in chemical kinetics can indeed be a fraction and does not need to be limited to whole numbers or 'nice' fractions such as 1/2, 1/3, etc. The reaction order can be any real number including decimals, such as 0.457, and this value represents the proportionality of the reaction rate to the concentration of the catalyst or reactant.

In the provided example, a reaction order of 0.457 with respect to ZnO means that if the concentration of ZnO is raised to the power of 0.457 in the rate law, it correctly describes how the reaction rate is affected by the concentration of ZnO.

In chemical kinetics, half-lives can differ depending on the order of the reaction. The half-life of a first-order reaction is independent of the concentration of the reactant, whereas the half-lives of reactions with other orders depend on the concentrations of the reactants.