Question

How have advances in technology changed the rate determination process?

Answer 1

Advences in technology have helped us determining the rate of a chemical reaction more accurately with in a lesser interval of time. It has also helped us determining the rate of chemical reactions that are difficult to carry out at normal condition.

While determining the rate of a chemical reaction, it is important to measure the concentration of reactants and producta at different time interval. The concentration of reactants and products can be measured more accurately by spectroscopy via absorption or fluoroscence.

The rate of reactions that are very fast and requires more enegry cannot be determined by using traditinal techniques. By using latest technologies like flash photolysis, LASER - pump probe techniques etc. we can carry out very fast reactions and reactions that requires more energy. In this technique Laser pulses are used both to initiate the reaction and detect the concentration of reactants and products via pulsed spectroscopic techniques.

With the help of this technique we can also measure the tine more accurately as the time delay between two lasers is of the order of 10^-12 sec.