Resumen de What Is the Overall Stoichiometry of a Complex Reaction?
The overall stoichiometry of a reaction having a multistep mechanismcan be derived using methods based on either of the following twoapproaches: elemental-balance or extent of reaction. The extent ofreaction method (ξ method) has been used for many years. We haverecently shown (J.Chem.Educ. 2000, 77, 188) thatintegration of rate equations (the kinetic method) offers analternative to the ξ method using methods that may be more familiarto many chemists. The two methods are, however, equivalent and give thesame results, as pointed out in the Appendix. The elemental-balancemethod is the simplest of the three methods but, as we shall show, itdoes not always give as much information about the system beinganalyzed as do the other two methods. In this paper bothelemental-balance and kinetic methods will be used to derivestoichiometric relationships and the results will be compared. We showthat each method has its advantages and conclude that both methods areuseful in different contexts.
