Consider the following energy profile.

(a) How many elementary reactions are in the reaction mechanism?

Video transcript

Hey, everyone, we're asked to determine the number of elementary reactions in the following energy profile. But first, let's go ahead and talk about our energy profile here. We can see that our X axis is our reaction progress and our y axis is our potential energy labeling a couple key points here, we know that we start off with our reactant and we're going to end with our product. Now, in between these two, we can see that we have our intermediate. Now, when we talk about our elementary steps, we will have one that is in between our reactant and our intermediate. So this is elementary step number one, which will be this portion right here. And in between our intermediate and our product, we have elementary step number two, which will be this portion right here. So looking at our labels, it looks like we have two elementary reactions in this energy profile, which will be our final answer. Now, I hope this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.