You have been asked to assess the stability of a new aqueous formulation of apraclonidine eye drops which has been developed to reduce the irritation that some patients experience. Your preliminary study estimates the activation energy of the degradation reaction to be 56.0 kJ/mol and the shelf life at 40oC to be 8 months (35 weeks).

Predict the shelf life of the product stored at 25 oC, and comment on the results, given that the existing eye drops have a reported shelf life of 3 years at 25 oC. (5 marks) R = 8.3145 J/deg/mol