Resumen de Teaching Kinetics of the Traffic Light Reaction
Sanaz C. Habibi, Ben K. Bloom, A. Elena Sjoblom, Olivia W. Schmitz, Alivia Edwards, Zachary R. Croasmun Adams, Ryan J. DeLuca, Jared S. Smith, Kaci L. Kuntz
Common educational laboratory experiments often investigate rate laws, reaction rates, and reaction orders for reactions that occur in a single step. Interestingly, lab demonstrations that have multistep and multicolor reactions, such as the Traffic Light reaction or oscillating Briggs–Rauscher reaction, have found limited application in student lab experiments, often due to complex kinetics. Here, we have developed a laboratory experiment that enables students to investigate the two-step sequential reduction kinetics of the Traffic Light reaction with the use of a spectrometer. Furthermore, this allows students to qualitatively interpret disappearance and appearance events in absorbance spectra as well as quantitatively evaluate and determine the rate laws for each reduction step. This experiment is accessible to general chemistry lab students in high-school and university educational environments.
