The BZ Reaction:: Experimental and Model Studies in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory

• Omar Benini ^[1] ; Rinaldo Cervellati ^[1] ; Pasquale Fetto ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Bologna

     University of Bologna

     Bolonia, Italia

     
• Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 73, Nº 9 (September), 1996, págs. 865-868
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The paper illustrates integrated physical chemistry-computational lab experiments at the tertiary level on the "classic" Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) oscillating reaction. The complete work was designed for studying the behavior of the Ce4+/Ce3+- and Fe(phen)32+/Fe(phen)33+-catalyzed BZ systems and developing a kinetic model to interpret the experimental data. The students prepared the appropriate reactant mixtures and followed spectrophotometrically the absorbance of Ce4+ and Fe(phen)32+ ions. Then they plot the period of oscillation as a function of the initial concentration of any one of the mixture components observing in particular the difference in the dependence of the oscillation period on the [Ce4+]o and [Fe(phen)32+]o respectively. These differences suggest that the two redox couples catalyze the BZ reaction by different mechanisms. A kinetic mathematical model based on the FKN mechanism for the cerium-catalyzed reaction is presented and discussed. The numerical intergration solutions of the resulting rate equations show that the model accounts satsfactorily for the oscillations of the Ce4+/Ce3+-catalyzed system but fails to reproduce the experimental behavior of the system catalyzed by the couple Fe(phen)32+/Fe(phen)33+. It has been proved that these integrated chemistry-computational lab experiments are a powerful tool in stimulating student interest in physical chemistry and in showing the importance of chemical kinetics in the elucidation of reaction mechanism.