Elementary Kinetics

Conclusion

Kinetics is the study of chemical reaction rates, that is, how fast a chemical reaction proceeds. Molecules can react when they crash into one another with enough energy, and in the correct orientation, to break and reform chemical bonds. Both the temperature and the concentration of the reactants can affect the rate of the reaction. The reaction rate is expressed by the rate law, which relates the speed of the reaction to the concentration of the reactants through a proportionality constant k, known as the rate constant.

Kinetics is different from thermodynamics. Understanding thermodynamic principles can help us figure out if a reaction is physically possible, while kinetics can tell us how fast that same reaction will actually go. The rates of chemical reactions can be greatly increased by enzymes, which are special proteins that act as catalysts. Most chemical reactions that occur in living organisms are catalyzed by enzymes. Because these chemical reactions are almost never at equilibrium (finished reacting) in our bodies, a knowledge of chemical kinetics is important for understanding how metabolic processes work.