Chemical Kinetics and Reaction Engineering

Note: CHEMENG320 is not going to be offered through SCPD this winter 2023-24.

Chemical kinetics is the study of the rates of chemical reactions; if changes in conditions impact the speed of a reaction, we can better understand what caused the reaction. In this course, you’ll learn to understand complicated data sets and analysis techniques for measuring and understanding these rate changes. You’ll study the origin of kinetics rate laws, emerging tools, techniques and topics of interest to chemical engineers, material scientists, chemists and biologists.

Topics Include

• Commonly used experimental techniques for collecting reaction rate data
• Emerging experimental tools, especially single-molecule techniques, for characterizing enzyme kinetics
• Transition state theory, a useful framework for understanding the physical factors that govern chemical reactivity
• Marcus theory, which describes the physical principles that govern electron transfer reactions
• Enzyme kinetics, including the origins of enzymatic catalysis, Michaelis-Menten kinetics, inhibition models, and models of protein allostery and cooperativity
• Monte Carlo simulations as a useful tool for modeling kinetic systems
• Application of data analysis techniques, including maximum likelihood estimators, the bootstrap method, and tests of statistical significance