[pfnm]

In the lab, we reacted 0.1M t-butyl chloride with 0.01M OH- under various conditions.

My results show, increasing the temperature made the reaction faster, decreasing the temperature made it slower.

(51s average time at 24 degrees C, 31s average time at 32 degrees C, and 99s average time at 17 degrees C).

Why?

If the rate of the reaction depends only on the dissociation of the t-butyl chloride ion, does this mean a higher temperature causes the t-buyl chloride to ionise more rapidly? So the C-Cl bond breaks more quickly?

My lab book says, "The tendency of the carbon-chlorine bond to rupture will depend upon whether a sufficient amount of energy (in the stretching vibration of the bond) is available in the tert-butyl chloride molecules."

[jake.n]

Your reasoning sounds solid to me. Typically temperature does increase reaction rate on the principle that higher energy in your system increases the number of molecules that are able to overcome the kinetic barrier

[adianadiadi]

Yes. More collisions and more rapid exchange of energy. Maxwell distribution curves indicate the increase in the fraction of molecules possessing higher energies.