Edexcel A-Level Chemistry A2 11.2 The Half Life of a Reaction Questions

Practise Edexcel IAL Chemistry 11.2 by reading successive half-lives from graphs, identifying first-order behaviour, calculating remaining amounts and using half-life relationships.

Syllabus
First assessment 2019
Course
Chemistry YCH11
Level
A2

Exam points

  • Determine two successive half-lives from a graph and show the construction clearly.
  • Justify first order from approximately constant half-lives at different concentrations.
  • Calculate remaining amount or concentration after a stated number of half-lives.
  • calculate a first-order rate constant from a half-life when the relationship is provided

Edexcel A-Level Chemistry A2 11.2 The Half Life of a Reaction Questions question 1

[Maximum number: 4]

Ethyl butanoate reacts with water.

CH3CH2CH2COOCH2CH3+H2O→CH3CH2CH2COOH+CH3CH2OH\mathrm{CH}_{3} \mathrm{CH}_{2} \mathrm{CH}_{2} \mathrm{COOCH}_{2} \mathrm{CH}_{3}+\mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O} \rightarrow \mathrm{CH}_{3} \mathrm{CH}_{2} \mathrm{CH}_{2} \mathrm{COOH}+\mathrm{CH}_{3} \mathrm{CH}_{2} \mathrm{OH}

A student investigated the kinetics of this reaction.

Procedure

Step 150 cm^3 of ethyl butanoate was heated under reflux with a very large excess of water.

Step 2 After 30 minutes a sample of known volume was removed from the reaction mixture and placed in a conical flask.

Step 3 This sample was titrated using aqueous sodium hydroxide solution.
Step 4 Further samples were removed from the refluxing mixture at 30-minute intervals. Each sample was titrated until the titres of three consecutive samples were the same.

Question (a)

(a)

A graph of the results obtained by the student is shown.

The student plotted V_final -V_t on the y -axis against time on the x -axis.
V_final is the volume of the titre at 4.5 hours.
V_t is the volume of the titre at time t .

Figure for Question (a) — Edexcel A-Level Chemistry A2
[ 4 ]

Question (i)

(i)

Explain how the data collected indicates first order kinetics.

Show your working on the graph.

[ 2 ]

Question (ii)

(ii)

The student concluded that the reaction is first order overall.

Explain whether or not this statement is valid.

[ 2 ]
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