Four Basic Kinetic Situations

In the last four sections, we have illustrated some basic kinetic concepts. We will repeatedly meet the underlying kinetic situations in the following chapters. In one way or the other, they will serve as starting points when we later analyze and discuss more complicated kinetic problems in greater depth. 

The above basic scheme is readily adapted to situations where the elementary reactions are of higher molecularity, with the first-order rate constants then being replaced where appropriate by products of second-order rate constants and concentrations of species involved. This leads to rate laws of higher complexity and kinetic behaviour which now may signal the existence of a transient intermediate. It is not practicable to treat all possibilities here [16], but consideration of the simplest of such situations reveals useful patterns. Scheme 9.4 presents a reaction of known stoichiometry, and four possible alternative kinetic schemes involving a reversibly formed intermediate (I) consistent with that stoichiometry. 

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