Data Analysis on the Arrhenius Equation
Introduction
Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927), was a great Swedish Scientist who
won a Nobel prize in chemistry in 1903. He did a lot of work in many other
chemistry fields, but my paper will examines his study on the temperature
dependence of rate constants.
Rate constants depend strongly on temperature, typically increasing rapidly
with increasing temperature. A rough rule, valid for many reactions in
solution, is that near room temperature, K doubles or triples for each 10oC
increase in Temperature.
Data Analysis:
Below is data from a reaction between Ethoxide and Methyl iodide studied
by Hecht and Conrad in (1889), and it corresponding graph.
Temp.(oC) Rate (k) Temp. (K)
0 168 273
6 354 627
12 735 1008
18 1463 1736
24 3010 3283
30 6250 6523
Rate (k) Vs. Absolute Temperature
y = 1E-12e
0.12x
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
270 280 290 300 310
Absolute Temperature (k)
Reaction rate (K)
The graph shows that the rate of the reaction varies exponentially with
increasing temperature as expected.
