Equilibrium Reactions or Opposed Reactions
A pair of forward and reverse reactions may define an equilibrium process. For example, A and B react into X and Y and vice versa (s, t, u, and v are the stoichiometric coefficients):
The reaction rate expression for the above reactions (assuming each one is elementary) can be expressed as:
where: k1 is the rate coefficient for the reaction that consumes A and B; k2 is the rate coefficient for the backwards reaction, which consumes X and Y and produces A and B.
The constants k1 and k2 are related to the equilibrium coefficient for the reaction (K) by the following relationship (set r=0 in balance):
Read more about this topic: Rate Equation
Famous quotes containing the words equilibrium, reactions and/or opposed:
“They who feel cannot keep their minds in the equilibrium of a pair of scales: fear and hope have no equiponderant weights.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. You get here all my thoughts and opinions, always irresponsible and often contradictory or mutually exclusive, all my moods and vapours, all the varying reactions to environment of this jelly which is I.”
—W.N.P. Barbellion (1889–1919)
“I went to the circus, and loafed around the back side till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it.... I ain’t opposed to spending money on circuses, when there ain’t no other way, but there ain’t no use in wasting it on them.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)