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Chemical Kinetics: Enzymes Essay

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Chemical Kinetics is the branch of chemistry that studies the speed at which a chemical reaction occur and the factor that influence this speed. What is meant by the speed of a reaction is the rate at which the concentrations of reactants and products change within a time period. Some reactions occur almost instantaneously, while others take days or years. Chemical kinetics understanding I used in the process of designing drugs, controlling pollution and the processing of food. Most of the time chemical kinetics is used to speed or to increase the rate of a reaction rather than to maximize the amount of product. The rate of a reaction is often expressed in terms of change in concentration (Δ [ ]) per unit of time (Δ t). We can measure the …show more content…

An interesting result is obtained when the instantaneous rate of reaction is calculated at various points along the curve in the graph of the change in concentration versus time. The rate of reaction at every point on this curve is directly proportional to the concentration of the reactants at that moment of time.

Rate = k(reactant concentration)

Because this equation is an experimental law that describes the rate of the reaction, it is called the rate law for the reaction. The proportionality constant, k, is known as the rate constant. For general reactions (aA + bB cC + dD) the rate law is (rate = k[A]x[B]y) where k is the rate constant and the exponents x and y are numbers that must be establish experimentally. The values of the exponents in the rate law indicate the order of the reaction with respect to each reactant. The sum of x and y is called the overall reaction order.

Catalysts are one of the factors that extremely affect the rate of a reaction. Catalysts are substances that speed up the rate of a reaction without being consumed themselves. When the reaction has ended, you would have exactly the same mass of catalyst as you had at the beginning. One common example are enzymes which are catalysts used to speed chemical reactions inside our body. Enzymes bind for the time being to one or more of the reactants, substrate(s), of the reaction they

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