Prompt 2: Reaction Rate (12 points) Scenario: You are a researcher in a pharmace
ID: 526776 • Letter: P
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Prompt 2: Reaction Rate (12 points) Scenario: You are a researcher in a pharmaceutical company. Your job is to determine the optimal shape and size for a pill and the best way to ingest it for the most rapid effect (having the dosage in one or two pills, dissolving the recommended dosage in water or direct ingestion). Your team is to investigate how temperature and relative surface area affect solubility (rate and quantity). Consider the audience and the applications. If you wish to have a pill that dissolves quickly and offers "instant relief than consider what you must do for that. If, instead you wanted a pill that could dissolve slowly and offer "lasting relief then consider the conditions necessary for that. Considering the factors that we can control to affect the rate of a reaction and use that information to outline what how you would design a pill for the instant relief and how you would design a second for the lasting relief. In your explanation be sure to use the proper vocabulary and use our experiments and your personal experiences as evidence to support your claims.Explanation / Answer
For a pill to be fast reacting, it has to dissolve quickly in the body fluids. The dissolution of pill will depend on three factors: 1) size of the pill 2) structure of the pill 3) fluid and its temperature in the body.
In terms of size and shape, the pill must be in size which has highest specifc surface area which is typically a flattened cylinder. Flattened cylinders have high surface area per unit volume and it is known that any solid of large size will have less surface area exposed compared to solid of smaller size. For example powedered solid has higher surface area than a lump and it is known that more the surface area, higher is the reaction rate. So it is better to have a pill which is flattened cylinder in shape and is of a smaller size so as to ensure more availability of reactant molecules on its surface and hence have more reactivity which in turn would ensure fast relief.
Since the body temperature and the fluid present in body can not be changed, it is the first two parameters which can be modified as per our requirements. In general, the solubility of a solid increases with temperature in a good solvent (mostly water is used to take the pill along). So it is to be noted that the pill must have ingredients that are readily dissolvable in the body fluid and water. Similarly since the pill taken must give instant relief to those parts of the body which are not in healthy conditions, the granules or the particles of the pills, after dissolving in the fluid must be able to diffuse readily in the liquid (present in the body) without encountering any mass transfer resistance or diffusion resistance. So its ingredients also must have higher diffusivities in the liquid in which they are used.
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