Chapter 123 of 2363 min read
Rate law, order and molecularity
Why this is asked: Order is an experimentally determined exponent in the rate law — it can be zero, fractional, even negative — while molecularity is a theoretical count of colliding species in one elementary step and must be a positive integer; the two coincide only for a genuine single-step reaction. You cannot read a complex, multi-step reaction's rate law off its balanced equation the way you can for an elementary step.
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