The Glyoxal Clock Reaction

Research on the glyoxal clock reaction has led to adaptation of the clock reaction to a general chemistry experiment. This particular reaction is just one of many that used formaldehyde in the past. The kinetics of the glyoxal clock makes the reaction suitable as a general chemistry lab using a Calculator Based Laboratory (CBL) or a LabPro. The apparent order of the reacting species has been determined: first order in glyoxal and zero order in bisulfite.