The respiration of plants is a biochemical reaction and should have a rate determined by the Arrhenius equation, k = Ae-EA/RT. Here, k is the rate, A is a constant, EA is the activation energy for the reaction, R is the gas constant, and T is the temperature in kelvins.
If the rate doubles for a 6 kelvin rise in temperature at around room temperature, what is the activation energy for the reaction?
R is about 8.31 J/K-mol. The value of e is 2.718, but you only have to know that ln(2) is about 0.693 and that you can rewrite the Arrhenius equation as ln(k) = -EA/RT. That means that the reaction rate doubles when the value of EA/RT changes by 0.693, or the value of EA/T changes by 0.693×8.31 J/K-mol = 5.76 J/K-mol.
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