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Overall activation energy for parallel reactions
Author(s) -
Giralt Francesc,
Missen R. W.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.5450520612
Subject(s) - arrhenius equation , activation energy , kinetic energy , thermodynamics , energy (signal processing) , distribution (mathematics) , product (mathematics) , point (geometry) , mathematics , order (exchange) , physics , statistical physics , mathematical physics , chemistry , mathematical analysis , classical mechanics , statistics , geometry , finance , economics
The overall activation energy from the point of view of reactant in a kinetic scheme involving parallel reactions of the same order depends in general on whether the integrated or the differential form of the Arrhenius equation is used for the definition. Expressions are given for the two quantities (E and E', respectively), both of which are temperature‐dependent, in terms of the Arrhenius parameters (A 1 and E 1 ) of the individual steps. In the limits of low and high temperature, they become identical. At low temperature, the activation energy approaches the lowest of the E i , non‐asymptotically for E and asymptotically for E', but at high temperature it approaches the weighted average ΣA i E i /ΣA i asymptotically in both cases. The latter result is not inconsistent with well‐known conclusions drawn from the point of view of product distribution.