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In chemistry, a reaction coordinate [1] is an abstract one-dimensional coordinate chosen to represent progress along a reaction pathway. Where possible it is usually a geometric parameter that changes during the conversion of one or more molecular entities, such as bond length or bond angle. For example, in the homolytic dissociation of ...
An illustrative example is the effect of catalysts to speed the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen: . 2 H 2 O 2 → 2 H 2 O + O 2. This reaction proceeds because the reaction products are more stable than the starting compound, but this decomposition is so slow that hydrogen peroxide solutions are commercially available.
Reaction Coordinate. (A) Uncatalyzed (B) Catalyzed (C) Catalyzed with discrete intermediates (transition states) Most metal surface reactions occur by chain propagation in which catalytic intermediates are cyclically produced and consumed. [8] Two main mechanisms for surface reactions can be described for A + B → C. [2]
Figure 6:Reaction Coordinate Diagrams showing reactions with 0, 1 and 2 intermediates: The double-headed arrow shows the first, second and third step in each reaction coordinate diagram. In all three of these reactions the first step is the slow step because the activation energy from the reactants to the transition state is the highest.
In this type of plot (Figure 1), each axis represents a unique reaction coordinate, the corners represent local minima along the potential surface such as reactants, products or intermediates and the energy axis projects vertically out of the page. Changing a single reaction parameter can change the height of one or more of the corners of the plot.
In these reactions, the conjugate acid of the carbonyl group is a better electrophile than the neutral carbonyl group itself. Depending on the chemical species that act as the acid or base, catalytic mechanisms can be classified as either specific catalysis and general catalysis. Many enzymes operate by general catalysis.
In this reaction, naturally occurring chiral proline is the chiral catalyst in an aldol reaction. The starting material is an achiral triketone and it requires just 3% of proline to obtain the reaction product, a ketol in 93% enantiomeric excess. This is the first example of an amino acid-catalyzed asymmetric aldol reaction. [16] [17]
Two common modes of Lewis acid catalysis in reactions with polar mechanisms. In reactions with polar mechanisms, Lewis acid catalysis often involves binding of the catalyst to Lewis basic heteroatoms and withdrawing electron density, which in turn facilitates heterolytic bond cleavage (in the case of Friedel-Crafts reaction) or directly activates the substrate toward nucleophilic attack (in ...