Abstract
In this chapter we present a brief introduction to chemical kinetics. Key concepts like: reversibility of chemical reactions, reaction rate, reaction rate constant, and chemical equilibrium, are introduced and discussed. The most important of the results here derived is the so-called law of mass action; which we discuss from the perspective of chemical kinetics. In this chapter we follow a heuristic rather than a formal approach. We start by analyzing a few simple chemical reactions to gain insight into the chemical kinetics basic concepts. After that, we heuristically derive and discuss the corresponding results for the most general case. The interested reader can consult any of the many available books on the subject. We particularly recommend the book by Houston (Chemical kinetics and reaction dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001).
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References
Houston P (2001) Chemical kinetics and reaction dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York
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Santillán, M. (2014). Brief Introduction to Chemical Kinetics. In: Chemical Kinetics, Stochastic Processes, and Irreversible Thermodynamics. Lecture Notes on Mathematical Modelling in the Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06689-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06689-9_1
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Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06688-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06689-9
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