Introduction

Baking a cake and editing pictures for social media both take a sequence of steps.  Some steps take longer time than others.  Chemical reactions can also occur in a similar manner, involving stepwise interactions at the molecular level.  Interestingly, biological cells use proteins called enzymes to speed up biochemical reactions that would otherwise proceed too slowly.  In this Unit, we are interested in describing how quickly chemical reactions occur and how we can modify the speed of chemical reactions.

Unit 2 Sections

2.1 The Rate of a Reaction

2.2 Differential Rate Laws

2.3 Integrated Rate Law

2.4 Temperature and Reaction Rate

2.5 Reaction Mechanisms

2.6 Catalysis

Each section has a reading portion, self-check question, and a set of practice exercises with solutions.  This course has a strong emphasis on solving problems by applying concepts from the reading portions.  Thus, working through the self-check questions and practice exercises is important for learning how to apply concepts in chemistry. The supplementary resources and supplementary activities within the sections are not for marks but provide alternative perspectives to enhance understanding of the course material.