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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: hopzz on July 16, 2024, 08:39:19 AM

Title: Determining activation energy
Post by: hopzz on July 16, 2024, 08:39:19 AM
if im determining the Ea of the catalyzed and uncatalyzed iodination of propanone, can i not use a colorimeter? can i simply measure the time taken for the colour change to happen?
Title: Re: Determining activation energy
Post by: Borek on July 16, 2024, 10:33:52 AM
This is about as vague as possible, more details on the experiment please.

Broadly speaking it can be, or can be not possible, depending on the setup. But the best approach is to not wait till "the color changes", but to measure the color change, as it will allow to follow the reaction progress in a quantitative way.
Title: Re: Determining activation energy
Post by: Corribus on July 17, 2024, 08:36:33 AM
Agreed, very vague, but I will also point out that catalyzed reactions (e.g., those based on enzymes) often display non-Arrhenius behavior. So, extracting an activation energy from an Arrhenius plot may not be simple.