Chemistry - Chemical Kinetics Question with Solution | TestHub

Vitamin D is essential for healthy bone structure. Mushrooms are a rich source of ergosterol, a precursor of vitamin D₂. Cultivated mushrooms grown in the dark have little vitamin D₂, but when exposed to UV light, ergosterol is converted into vitamin D₂. In a kinetics experiment, different mushroom varieties were irradiated with UV light for varying periods of time and then analyzed for their concentrations of ergosterol and vitamin D₂.

The kinetics of production of vitamin D₂ from ergosterol were expected to be of the form:

$$rateofproductionofvitamin{D}_2=k[ergosterol{]}^a$$

where $k$ is the rate constant for the particular mushroom,

$[ergosterol]$ is the concentration of the reactant ergosterol,

and $a$ is the order of reaction with respect to the concentration of ergosterol.

The concentrations of vitamin D₂ in oyster mushrooms and button mushrooms after irradiating the mushrooms for different periods of time are shown below:

The order of the reaction, $a$, is _____________