Answer to Question #221239 in Physical Chemistry for Kambru

Question

What is meant by the term 'order of reaction'? Give a brief account to the methods of determining the order of a reaction

Answer 1

The Order of reaction refers to the relationship between the rate of a chemical reaction and the concentration of the species taking part in it. In order to obtain the reaction order, the rate expression (or the rate equation) of the reaction in question must be obtained.

If you get a straight line with a negative slope, then that would be first order. For second order, if you graph the inverse of the concentration A versus time, you get a positive straight line with a positive slope, then you know it's second order.