Two Levels, One Subtraction

You'll learnto read ΔH as final minus initial energy, ignoring the activation hill between them.

An energy diagram looks like a landscape, and the tallest thing on it is the hill in the middle. Ignore the hill: ΔH is the vertical gap between the shelf you started on and the shelf you ended on, and the order of that subtraction is the whole topic. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · ΔH = H(products) − H(reactants) · v4

two shelves · one subtraction · finish minus start

Before you start

What you're looking at

An energy diagram drawing itself: reactants on a shelf at 100 kJ/mol, products on one at 30, and a 140 kJ hill between them.

The question

Is ΔH the height of that tall peak, or something else entirely?

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