For drug development, it is crucial to optimize the half-life of elimination of the drug so that the drug has long enough to act but not enough time to cause harmful side-effect. After the intravenous administration of a new beta blocker, the blood plasma of a patient was analysed for the remaining drug and the data is shown below, where c is the drug concentration measured at a time t after the injection.
Time (min) 30 60 120 150 240 360 480
c (ng cm-3) 699 622 413 292 152 60 24
i. Determine graphically whether the removal of the drug is a first order or second order rate process.
ii. Calculate the rate constant for the process.
iii. Determine the half life of the process.