Molecular Theories of Chemical Kinetics

It should be evident from this discussion that the first explosion limit will be quite sensitive to the nature of the surface of the reaction vessel and the surlace/volnme ratio of the reactor. If the surface is coated with a material 

Our discussion of chain reaction processes is necessarily incomplete. For more detailed treatments consult the following references. 

Bamford and C. F. H. Tipper (Eds.), Comprehensive Chemical Kinetics, Vol. II, The Theory of Kinetics, Elsevier, New York, 1969. 

Warnatz, U. Maas, and R. W. Dibble, Combustion Physical and Chemical Fundamentals, Modeling and Simulation, Experiments, Pollutant Formation, 4th ed, Springer-verlag, Berlin, 2006. 

Moad and D. H. Solomon, The Chemistry of Free Radical Polymerization, Peigamon, Press, Oxford, 1995. 

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This chapter treats the descriptions of the molecular events that lead to the kinetic phenomena that one observes in the laboratory. These events are referred to as the mechanism of the reaction. The chapter begins with definitions of the various terms that are basic to the concept of reaction mechanisms, indicates how elementary events may be combined to yield a description that is consistent with observed macroscopic phenomena, and discusses some of the techniques that may be used to elucidate the mechanism of a reaction. Finally, two basic molecular theories of chemical kinetics are discussed—the kinetic theory of gases and the transition state theory. The determination of a reaction mechanism is a much more complex problem than that of obtaining an accurate rate expression, and the well-educated chemical engineer should have a knowledge of and an appreciation for some of the techniques used in such studies. 

Several different approaches have been utilized to develop molecular theories of chemical kinetics which can be used to interpret the phenomenological description of a reaction rate. A common element in all approaches is an explicit formulation of the potential energy of interaction between reacting molecules. Since exact quantum-mechanical calculations are not yet available for any system, this inevitably involves the postulation of specific models of molecules which only approximate the real situation. The ultimate test of the usefulness of such models is found in the number of independent macroscopic properties which can be correctly explained or predicted. Even so, it must be remembered that it is possible for incorrect models to predict reasonably correct macroscopic properties because of fortuitous cancellation of errors, insensitivity of the properties to the nature of the model, relatively large uncertainties in the magnitudes of the properties, or combinations of such effects. 

A final comment on the interpretation of stochastic simulations We are so accustomed to writing continuous functions—differential and integrated rate equations, commonly called deterministic rate equations—that our first impulse on viewing these stochastic calculations is to interpret them as approximations to the familiar continuous functions. However, we have got this the wrong way around. On a molecular level, events are discrete, not continuous. The continuous functions work so well for us only because we do experiments on veiy large numbers of molecules (typically 10 -10 ). If we could experiment with very much smaller numbers of molecules, we would find that it is the continuous functions that are approximations to the stochastic results. Gillespie has developed the stochastic theory of chemical kinetics without dependence on the deterministic rate equations. 

A correlation between surface and volume processes is described in Section 5. The atomic-molecular kinetic theory of surface processes is discussed, including processes that change the solid states at the expense of reactions with atoms and molecules of a gas or liquid phase. The approach reflects the multistage character of the surface and volume processes, each stage of which is described using the theory of chemical kinetics of non-ideal reactive systems. The constructed equations are also described on the atomic level description of diffusion of gases through polymers and topochemical processes. 

The standard theories of chemical kinetics are equilibrium theories in which a Maxwell-Boltzmann energy (or momentum or internal coordinate) distribution of reactants is postulated to persist during a reaction. In the collision theory, mainly due to Hinshelwood,7 the number of energetic, reaction producing collisions is calculated under the assumption that the molecular velocity distribution always remains Maxwellian. In the absolute... 

The kinetic molecular theory of gases (p. 178) postulates that gas molecules frequently collide with one another. Therefore, it seems logical to assume—and it is generally true—that chemical reactions occur as a result of collisions between reacting molecules. In terms of the collision theory of chemical kinetics, then, we expect the rate of a reaction to be directly proportional to the number of molecular collisions per second, or to the frequency of molecular collisions ... 

In chemical kinetics the concept of the order of a reaction forms the basis of a kinematics which constitutes a frame for most of the molecular theories of chemical reactions. The fundamental magnitudes of this kinematics are the concentrations and the specific rate constants. In simple cases only the time enters as an independent variable, whereas in a diffusion process both time and space are involved. Diffusion processes are generally described in terms of diffusion coefficients, volume concentrations and thermodynamic potential or activity factors. Partial volume factors and friction coefficients associated with the components of the diffusing mixture are also essential in the description. A feature of the macro-dynamical theory is that it covers any region of concentration. Especially simple equations are connected with the differential diffusion process (diffusion with small concentration differences), for which the different coefficients or factors mentioned above are practically constant. 

There are two major theories of chemical kinetics, collision theory (CT) and transition-state theory (TST). Both theories lead to rate equations that obey Generalization I, i.e., the effects of temperature and concentration are separable. Unfortunately, both CT and TST apply to a very limited category of reactions known as elementary reactions. An elementary reaction is one that occurs in a single step on the molecular level exactly as written in the balanced stoichiometric equation. The reactions that chemists and chemical engineers deal with on a practical level almost never are elementary. However, elementary reactions provide the link between molecular-level chemistry and reaction kinetics on a macroscopic level. Elementary reactions will be discussed in some depth in Chapter 5. For now, we must look at Eqn. (2-1) as an empirical attempt to extrapolate a key result of CT and TST to complex reactions that are outside the scope of the two theories. 

In this first phase of development, the theories of chemical kinetics tried to resolve the problem of the calculation of the pre-exponential factor and activation energy in the Arrhenius equation. The difficulties in calculating A stemmed in large part from the confusion that had existed ever since the first quarter of the nineteenth century over the role of molecular colhsions on the rates of reaction. Today, we know that molecular collisions lead to the distribution of energy between molecules, but the rate of chemical reactions is determined both by the frequency of these colhsions and the factors associated with the distribution of energy. 

By contrast, when both the reactive solute molecules are of a size similar to or smaller than the solvent molecules, reaction cannot be described satisfactorily by Langevin, Fokker—Planck or diffusion equation analysis. Recently, theories of chemical reaction in solution have been developed by several groups. Those of Kapral and co-workers [37, 285, 286] use the kinetic theory of liquids to treat solute and solvent molecules as hard spheres, but on an equal basis (see Chap. 12). While this approach in its simplest approximation leads to an identical result to that of Smoluchowski, it is relatively straightforward to include more details of molecular motion. Furthermore, re-encounter events can be discussed very much more satisfactorily because the motion of both reactants and also the surrounding solvent is followed. An unreactive collision between reactant molecules necessarily leads to a correlation in the motion of both reactants. Even after collision with solvent molecules, some correlation of motion between reactants remains. Subsequent encounters between reactants are more or less probable than predicted by a random walk model (loss of correlation on each jump) and so reaction rates may be expected to depart from those predicted by the Smoluchowski analysis. Furthermore, such analysis based on the kinetic theory of liquids leads to both an easy incorporation of competitive effects (see Sect. 2.3 and Chap. 9, Sect. 5) and back reaction (see Sect. 3.3). Cukier et al. have found that to include hydrodynamic repulsion in a kinetic theory analysis is a much more difficult task [454]. 

An excellent collection of tutorials developed by John Park of the The ChemTeam of Diamond Bar High School, California. Tutorials applicable to this chapter include Chemical Reactions, Kinetic-Molecular Theory, The Mole, Kinetics, Stoichiometry, and Thermochemistry. 

After in the foregoing chapter thermodynamic properties at high pressure were considered, in this chapter other fundamental problems, namely the influence of pressure on the kinetic of chemical reactions and on transport properties, is discussed. For this purpose first the molecular theory of the reaction rate constant is considered. The key parameter is the activation volume Av which describes the influence of the pressure on the rate constant. The evaluation of Av from measurement of reaction rates is therefor outlined in detail together with theoretical prediction. Typical value of the activation volume of different single reactions, like unimolecular dissociation, Diels-Alder-, rearrangement-, polymerization- and Menshutkin-reactions but also on complex homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic reactions are presented and discussed. 

However, if it is known from kinetic or other evidence that a reaction M + N - Product is a simple elementary reaction, i.e., if it is known that its mechanism is simply the interaction between a molecule of M and a molecule of N, then the molecular theory of reaction rates predicts that the rate of this elementary step is proportional to the concentration of species M and the concentration of species N, i.e. it is second order overall. The reaction is also said to be bimolecular since two molecules are involved in the actual chemical transformation. 

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