The term "Arrhenius behavior" refers to the relationship between temperature and reaction rates, as established by Svante Arrhenius. It describes how the rate of chemical reactions increases with temperature, specifically noting that the rate typically doubles with every 10°C increase. This behavior is rooted in the dissociation of salts into ions in solution, which facilitates chemical reactions. Modifications by Peter J. W. Debye and Erich Hückel are necessary to explain the behavior of strong electrolytes, while the Arrhenius equation quantitatively describes this relationship through activation energy and temperature.
PREREQUISITESChemists, chemical engineers, and students studying physical chemistry who seek to understand the relationship between temperature and reaction rates, particularly in solutions of electrolytes.
The most important idea in the dissertation was his explanation of the fact that neither pure salts nor pure water is a conductor, but solutions of salts in water are.
Arrhenius' explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt dissociates into charged particles (which Michael Faraday had given the name ions many years earlier). Faraday's belief had been that ions were produced in the process of electrolysis; Arrhenius proposed that, even in the absence of an electric current, solutions of salts contained ions. He thus proposed that chemical reactions in solution were reactions between ions. For weak electrolytes this is still believed to be the case, but modifications (by Peter J. W. Debye and Erich Hückel) were found necessary to account for the behavior of strong electrolytes.
MATLABdude said:Perhaps you're thinking of the Arrhenius relationship?
http://www.weibull.com/AccelTestWeb/arrhenius_relationship_chap_.htm
A e^{-\frac{E_{A}}{k_{B} T}}
Empirical relationship saying that things happen faster when it gets hotter (k_{B}, Boltzmann's constant multiplied by Temperature), and faster when there's a low activation energy / energy barrier (E_{A}).