electrochem genuises, please help

[orangeblossom]

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when you are given an activity series, is the reaction with the most positive potential always the one more likely to occur, whether its oxidation or reduction?

 

[MedPR]

when you are given an activity series, is the reaction with the most positive potential always the one more likely to occur, whether its oxidation or reduction?

You take two reaction potentials; one a reduction potential and the other an oxidation potential. Add them together. The most positive number = the most spontaneous.

 

[orangeblossom]

Im having a lot of trouble with electrochemistry in the EK book so sorry if my questions are dumb... The explanations keep saying things like "zinc ions cannot be oxidized further" or "the zinc electrode cannot be reduced any further" etc

How the heck do you know whether something can or cannot be reduced/oxidized any further??

 

[deleted393595]

when you are given an activity series, is the reaction with the most positive potential always the one more likely to occur, whether its oxidation or reduction?

The one with the higher reduction potential is more likely to be reduced, and vice versa.

Positive and negative are meaningless in the contest of reduction potentials - those are just arbitrary values that we have assigned.

Im having a lot of trouble with electrochemistry in the EK book so sorry if my questions are dumb... The explanations keep saying things like "zinc ions cannot be oxidized further" or "the zinc electrode cannot be reduced any further" etc

How the heck do you know whether something can or cannot be reduced/oxidized any further??

Zn2+ can't be oxidized any further because losing more electrons bites into the 3d subshell.

 

[orangeblossom]

oh ok. So you would just have to know that Zn2+ can't be oxidized further, but something like Zn1+ (if that even exists, i dont know!) can be oxidized a bit more?