Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 20 October 1967:
Vol. 158. no. 3799, pp. 332 - 342
DOI: 10.1126/science.158.3799.332
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Transition-State Models and Hydrogen-Isotope Effects

Kinetic isotope effects provide a sensitive test for detailed models of reacting systems

Ralph E. Weston Jr. 1

1 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, Long Island, New York 11973

The transition-state theory of chemical kinetics, coupled with relatively crude methods of constructing potential-energy surfaces for reacting systems, has great utility in the forecasting of kinetic properties. In particular, it permits prediction of the effect of isotopic substitution on rate constants, and comparison of these predictions with experimental data provides a particularly sensitive test for the combination of potential-energy surface and transition-state theory. More rigorous tests of each of these factors depend on future developments in quantum chemistry, in studies of chemical reactions in molecular beams, and in detailed trajectory calculations of scattering processes.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Applications of Electron Spin Resonance to Gas-Phase Kinetics.
A. A. Westenberg (1969)
Science 164, 381-388
   PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)