Dynamical processes in which many timescales coexist are called dispersive. The rate coefficients for dispersive processes depend on time. In the case of a chemical reaction, the time dependence of the rate coefficient, k(t), termed the specific reaction rate, is rationalized in the following way. Reactions by their very nature have to disturb reactivity distributions of the reactants in condensed media, as the more reactive species are the first ones to disappear from the system. The extent of this disturbance depends on the ratio of the rates of reactions to the rate of...

Dynamical processes in which many timescales coexist are called dispersive. The rate coefficients for dispersive processes depend on time. In the case of a chemical reaction, the time dependence of the rate coefficient, k(t), termed the specific reaction rate, is rationalized in the following way. Reactions by their very nature have to disturb reactivity distributions of the reactants in condensed media, as the more reactive species are the first ones to disappear from the system. The extent of this disturbance depends on the ratio of the rates of reactions to the rate of...

These notes on the use of one particular form of the time-dependent rate constant to describe the reaction patterns in condensed media have been put together primarily to encourage chemists to try and accept this new way of experimental data treatment. A number of applications is shown and interpretative aspects are discussed. Emphasized are the problems that need to be currently solved. Some of them are also of current interest in condensed phase physics from which the chemical kinetics benefits a great deal. It was inevitable that the choice of subject matter from both rapidly expanding...