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

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Omar Benini , Rinaldo Cervellati and Pasquale Fetto

Dipartimento di Chimica "G. Ciamician", Universitá di Bologna, via Selmi 2, I-40126 Bologna, Italy

J. Chem. Educ., 1996, 73 (9), p 865

DOI: 10.1021/ed073p865

Publication Date (Web): September 1, 1996

Abstract

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.

Keywords (Audience):

Graduate Education / Research

Keywords (Domain):

Physical Chemistry

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Computer-Based Learning

Keywords (Subject):

Quantitative Analysis

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