ABSTRACT
Chemical kinetics is the study of the rate at which chemical reactions occur. Although the timescales of chemical reactions vary enormously, ranging from days or years to just a few femtoseconds (10−15 s), the basic principle of all experimental kinetic methods is the same. Reactants of particular concentration are brought together and some measure is made of the rate at which the composition changes as the reaction progresses. Depending on the specificity of the detection method available, monitoring the rate of reaction may involve measurement of the rate at which specific reactants (or a subset of reactants) are consumed and/or the rate at which specific products (or a subset of products) are formed, or simply measurement of some bulk property of the system such as pressure, pH or ionic conductivity. More sophisticated detection might involve chromatography, mass spectrometry, or optical techniques such as absorption, fluorescence or polarimetry.
