Question

In order to monitor a chemical reaction for the purpose of determining reaction rates, what practical and creative decision must a scientist make? What important criteria must this choice fulfill?

Answer 1

Well there are a few things you have to consider

ike which instrument are you going to use?

And how are you going to keep a constant reaction mixture,

you really do not want to take aliquots because it will change the composition of your reaction. You also want to use

a solvent that will favor your identifying method to make it easier for you to complete the study. What some chemists

use to monitor reaction progress would place a small reaction in a NMR tube, in the proper solvent like CDCl3.

Then you can heat the tube up or have convection occur, let it go for two hour or whatever you decided and when

you're ready to check the reaction, all they have to do is take the NMR tube and go down and take an NMR. The

best part is that you don't have to take aliquots, just keep using the same NMR tube until you feel the reaction has

been complete.