Reaction Kinetics

Abstract

A chemical reaction between reactants Aa, Ab, etc., which form the products Ac, Ad, etc. can be described in the following form

$$ {\nu_a} {A_a} + {\nu_b}{A_b}{ + } \ldots \to {\nu_c}{A_c} + {\nu_d}{A_d}{ + } \ldots. $$

(5.1)

The ν _i thereby designate the so-called stoichiometric coefficients of the reaction. Since every chemical reaction can in principle run both forwards as well as backwards, the reaction arrow in (5.1) can be replaced with an equal sign. We thereby obtain the general form of the reaction equation

$$ \sum\limits_i {{\nu_i}{A_i} = 0,} $$

(5.2)

whereby the stoichiometric coefficients are conventionally negative for all educts and positive for all products.