CHEM 1002 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13.1: Dinitrogen Tetroxide, Elementary Reaction, Molecularity
25 Oct 2016
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Reaction mechanism: the exact molecular pathway that starting materials follow to become a product. Nitrogen dioxide is a brown-red coloured gas at room temperature - reducing the temperature cause no2 to become colourless - occurs because 2 molecules of no2 are joining to become n2o4 (form a collision complex creating a bond) Collision must form a collision complex between the nitrogen atoms - cannot be random collision (e. g if a no2 hits just the oxygen then it will not lead to n2o4) Nitrogens use their unpaired electron to bond (seen in lewis structure) A mechanism = description of actual molecular event that occurs during chemical reaction; each event = elementary reaction. Overall reaction is the sum of the elementary steps in mechanism. Elementary reactions can be unimolecular, bimolecular or termolecular - a mechanism consists of multiple mechanisms (summed) Most common elementary process: bimolecular reaction - results from collision of 2 molecules, atoms or ions (e. g no2 to n2o4)
