Most of the coal available in the United States is bituminous or \"soft\" coal,

Question

Most of the coal available in the United States is bituminous or "soft" coal, which contains as much as 5% sulfur by weight. When this coal is burned, the sulfur reacts with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide gas. When the sulfur dioxide gas dissolves in raindrops, it forms sulfuric acid. This is how we get acid rain. Here is the reaction that produces sulfur dioxide gas when soft coal is burned: S_8(s)+8O_2(g) rightarrow 8SO2(g). Suppose an engineer decides to study the rate of this reaction. She prepares four reaction vessels with 129.6 g of solid sulfur and 24.4 g of oxygen gas each. The volume and temperature of each vessel is shown in the table below. Arrange the reaction vessels in decreasing order of initial rate of reaction. In other words, select a "1" next to the vessel in which the engineer can reasonably expect the initial rate of reaction to be highest, a "2" next to the vessel in which the initial rate of reaction would be next highest, and so on.

Explanation / Answer

Initial rate of reaction governed by 2 most important factors,

viz.

1) Temperature at which reaction to be carried out.

2) Initial concentration of the reactant.

Of these two, temperature is most effective factor.

Effect of temperature and initial concentration and there consequences.

1) Rate of reaction firstly depends upon the temperature. Higher the temperature faster is the reaction.

Hence among given vessels, vessel –B is at highest temperature and hence initial rate of reaction will be highest in vessel B and obviously in the vessel – D it will be slowest as it is at lower temperature.

Now In A and C vessel case temperature is same hence now volume will govern the Initial rate of reaction.

Increase in volume for mixed mole or mass of reactant decreases it’s concentration (since, concentration = moles/volume) and hence we expect less initial concentration in 4.0 vessel than that of in 2.0 L vessel.

And hence we can say that initial rate of reaction will be higher in vessel A than that of in vessel C.

Finally we can have decreasing order of initial rate of reaction as,

B > A > C > D.

Or,

Vessel B-1

Vessel-A-2

Vessel-C-3

Vessel-D-4

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