Lecture 9 Flashcards
What are reactants?
The starting molecules of a chemical reaction
What are products?
The final molecules of a chemical recation
What does the free energy charge tell us?
Whether or not a reaction occurred spontaneously or not
What is a living systems free energy?
energy that can do work when temperature and pressure are uniform, as in a living cell
what is delta G
Free-Energy Change
What is an exergonic reaction?
energy released spontaneously
What do enzymes do to metabolic recations?
They speed them up by lowering energy barriers
Thermodynamics does not tell us about the ____ of a reaction.
speed
What is a catalyst?
a chemical agent that speeds up a reaction without being consumed by the reaction
What is an enzyme? Example?
a catalytic protein (occasionally RNA)
What occurs during chemical reactions?
bond breaking and bond forming
What is activation energy (Ea)?
The initial energy needed to start a chemical reaction
What is the activation energy often consist of?
thermal energy that the reactant molecules absorb from their surroundings
What happens at the transition state?
The reactants become unstable and start to go downhill
How is the change in free energy affected by enzymes?
enzymes have no effect on it; they only hasten reactions that would occur eventually