MCAT General Chemistry Review - Alexander Stone Macnow, MD 2019-2020

Chemical Kinetics
Introduction

Chapter Profile

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The content in this chapter should be relevant to about 10% of all questions about general chemistry on the MCAT.

This chapter covers material from the following AAMC content categories:

1A: Structure and function of proteins and their constituent amino acids

5E: Principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics

Introduction

The following chapters focus on two primary topics: chemical kinetics and chemical equilibrium. As the term suggests, chemical kinetics is the study of reaction rates, the effects of reaction conditions on these rates, and the mechanisms implied by such observations. We start with kinetics because the molecular basis of reactions provides us with a framework of reaction chemistry. Following this, we will explore the equilibria of these reactions, which are related to—but distinct from—the kinetics of the reactions.

You may already have a fairly good understanding of equilibrium and the differences between spontaneous and nonspontaneous reactions. For instance, the utilization of ATP in the body is a spontaneous reaction that can be used to provide thermochemical energy for other reactions. While the equilibrium tells us that ATP will favor dissociation, it tells us nothing about its rate of dissociation. And, in fact, various conditions in the body can alter the rate at which ATP is synthesized and utilized for energy—primarily temperature. Some of the symptoms of hyper- and hypothermia are related to changes in metabolism caused by changes in temperature and reaction kinetics.

More broadly, we will see how multistep reactions, such as those seen in substrate-level and oxidative phosphorylation in biochemistry, have intermediate steps that have crucial kinetic limitations.