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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: -_-zzzz on November 27, 2018, 01:55:14 AM

Title: Free Radicals at STP
Post by: -_-zzzz on November 27, 2018, 01:55:14 AM

Why can’t free radicals participate in redox reactions ar STP? For example the reaction between sodium and chlorine is always written as 2Na(s) + Cl2(g) ——> 2NaCl(s) instead of as Na(s) + Cl(g) ——> NaCl(s)

Title: Re: Free Radicals at STP
Post by: Borek on November 27, 2018, 02:56:31 AM

At STP they recombine way too fast to exist in significant amounts and have any serious impact on this kind of reaction.

Title: Re: Free Radicals at STP
Post by: Enthalpy on November 27, 2018, 05:32:40 AM

A reaction written that way only describes the reactants and products, not the intermediates.

Reaction steps may involve free radicals, in extremely small amount and very short-lived, as they take much more energy to produce than is available from the temperature as a mean.
http://people.chem.ucsb.edu/neuman/robert/orgchembyneuman.book/11%20RadicalSubstitutionAddition/11FullChapt.pdf