Question

in a chemical reaction what does the powers of the reactants represent?

Answer 1

Dear Student,

In the rate law, the power of the reactants represent orders determined by experiment. They may or may not be equal to the stoichiometric coefficients of the reactants in the balanced equation.
For eg.
$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{aA}+\mathrm{bB}\to \mathrm{Products} \\ \mathrm{rate}=-\frac{\mathrm{dx}}{\mathrm{dt}}=\mathrm{k}\left[\mathrm{A}{]}^{\mathrm{p}}\right[\mathrm{B}{]}^{\mathrm{q}} \end{gathered}$$
where p and q may or may not be equal to a and b respectively.
Overall order is given by these values as, overall order=p+q