The following cell reactions occur spontaneously: (a) Arrange the following reduction half-reactions in order of decreasing tendency to occur:

Video transcript

Hello everyone. So in this video we're given these three reactions here and we're trying to go ahead and sort in decreasing order of the likelihood of occurrence. So let's go ahead and recall that if we're losing electrons that we have an oxidation, which means that this is a reducing agent. On the other hand, if we're gaining electrons, they were dealing with the reduction which makes this substance a good oxidizing agent. Alright, so now taking a look at the given spontaneous reactions here, let's go ahead and evaluate this. So we can see that RZ two plus is gaining electrons. Since now we have a positive to a neutral state of course by neutralizing it, it means it has to gain some sort of negative value and that's of electrons. So we're going from a two plus two a neutral state. So we can say that Z two plus is more easily reduced Then x two plus. Now, valuing our second reaction here, we see that again, RZ two plus is going to a neutral um adam. So we're gaining electrons here. So then now for this reaction we could say that C2 plus is more easily reduced When compared to our other contract Y two plus. Now, lastly for a third reaction here, we can see that the Y2 plus becomes neutral on the product side. So we're basically gaining electrons here. So we can then conclude That Y two plus is more easily reduced Than our X two plus character. So then with these evaluation notes in mind to go ahead and put them in decreasing order of occurrence for a reduction, we said here that our most easily reduced Catalan is going to be a Z two plus, So the 2000 Z two plus. So this is very high up in there. So then That's going to be reaction three that regards to RZ. So that's again just C two plus. Next one would then be our Y two plus because we can see here from our third one that Y two plus is more easily reducing X two plus. So then we have Y two plus and that just goes to say that X two plus will be the least likely to be reduced. So then matching it up with these two reactions here. Again, we already said that the two plus goes with this reaction here. So that's reaction three. Now with Y that's two and lastly that's one. So going from decreasing order of the likely holiness of the reduction over half reactions, that's going to be 32 to 1. So this right here is going to be my final answer for this problem