Order Of Reaction

Step 1: Understand the units of the rate constant.
The rate constant

K

has different units depending on the order of the reaction.
For a reaction of order

n

, the units of

K

are: Zero order:

%5Ctext%7Bmol%7D%20%5Ccdot%20%5Ctext%7BL%7D%5E%7B-1%7D%20%5Ccdot%20%5Ctext%7Bs%7D%5E%7B-1%7D

First order:

%5Ctext%7Bs%7D%5E%7B-1%7D

Second order:

%5Ctext%7BL%7D%20%5Ccdot%20%5Ctext%7Bmol%7D%5E%7B-1%7D%20%5Ccdot%20%5Ctext%7Bs%7D%5E%7B-1%7D

Step 2: Identify the order of the reaction. The rate constant has the units of

%5Ctext%7Bs%7D%5E%7B-1%7D

, which corresponds to a first-order reaction.

Chapter Questions
1 MCQs