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Author: Sarah Parkes

Cat Links Fundamentals, Organic chemistry

What makes a good leaving group?

Posted on May 30, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

And why do some perfectly plausible reactions just not happen? Acyl chlorides readily react with hydroxide ions to form a

Continue readingWhat makes a good leaving group?

Cat Links Fundamentals, Organic chemistry

How to name an alcohol, an alkoxide or an ether

Posted on May 24, 2023March 10, 2025 Sarah Parkes

Alcohols are organic molecules containing the OH, hydroxyl, functional group and are named after their parent alkane … If the

Continue readingHow to name an alcohol, an alkoxide or an ether

Cat Links Organic chemistry

How to prepare a halogenoalkane

Posted on May 23, 2023April 3, 2025 Sarah Parkes

There are number of ways to make a halogenoalkane, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Halogenation of

Continue readingHow to prepare a halogenoalkane

Cat Links Fundamentals

Experimental methods for following the rate of a reaction

Posted on May 19, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

Quenching We can stop a chemical reaction in its tracks using a practical technique called quenching. There are two ways

Continue readingExperimental methods for following the rate of a reaction

Cat Links Inorganic chemistry

What are autocatalytic reactions?

Posted on May 15, 2023June 21, 2024 Sarah Parkes

If we were to measure the change in concentration of a reactant over time and then plot a graph of

Continue readingWhat are autocatalytic reactions?

Cat Links Physical chemistry

Reaction mechanisms, intermediates and the rate determining step

Posted on May 9, 2023March 2, 2025 Sarah Parkes

There are many reactions which happen as the stoichiometric (chemical) equation would suggest … e.g. the reaction between chlorine radicals

Continue readingReaction mechanisms, intermediates and the rate determining step

Cat Links Calculations, Physical chemistry

Using the Arrhenius equation to find the activation energy for a reaction

Posted on April 17, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

For almost all reactions there is an energy barrier to overcome – this is known as the activation energy, Ea,

Continue readingUsing the Arrhenius equation to find the activation energy for a reaction

Cat Links Calculations, Physical chemistry

Differential and integrated rate equations for first order reactions

Posted on April 4, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

The decomposition of dinitrogen pentoxide is a first order reaction . 2N2O5(g) ⇾ 4NO2(g) + O2(g) The rate of the

Continue readingDifferential and integrated rate equations for first order reactions

Cat Links Calculations, Physical chemistry

Half life and first order reactions

Posted on March 31, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

All first order reactions have a constant half life, t½, which means that the time taken for the concentration of

Continue readingHalf life and first order reactions

Cat Links Calculations, Fundamentals

Rearranging equations to give straight line graphs in Chemistry

Posted on March 28, 2023September 10, 2024 Sarah Parkes

Graphs are one of the best ways we have to determine the quantitative relationship between an observed (plotted on the

Continue readingRearranging equations to give straight line graphs in Chemistry

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