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Ch.14 - Chemical Kinetics

Chapter 14, Problem 17b

(b) Name three factors that can affect the rate of a chemical reaction.

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Hey everyone today, we're being asked what the effects of temperature concentration and surface area have on the rate of a chemical reaction. So let's go ahead and take a look at temperature first and to do this, I'm just gonna draw a little box and imagine we have some particles within this box. Let's make this a little bigger. It's a little small right now. So let's draw some particles in here. So when temperature increases, the kinetic energy of the reactive molecules increases within here. Let's say these are reacting now in a chemical reaction, there are three very important things and that is temperature concentration and surface area. So as the temperature increases, the kinetic energy will also increase, which means the rate of which they collide. The rate of which rate of collisions will increase increases because now or the reactive molecules are at a much higher state of energy, they'll be bouncing around everywhere and they're much more likely to effectively collide with other molecules that are also high energy and proceed with the forward direction of the reaction. So as temperature increases, the rate also increases. Next. Let's take a look at concentration and I'll draw out another box. If a solution is highly saturated with reacting molecules and let's just draw a lot of them in here as the concentration increases. That means there are more molecules there are more molecules that can react with one another. This means they can also collide more effectively and yield more product. Therefore, as there's more molecules rate also will increase. So that means with concentration as concentration increases. So too does the rate of the reaction. Finally taking a look at surface area? Will draw something a little different. Not a box this time, but assume. And a very easy comparison would be rather than a molecule. Take a look at two pieces of paper. If we have a single piece of paper that is flat, it's pristine, there's nothing on it and we have another one that has wrinkles and it's folded and it's messed up. It will have more surface area than the flat piece of paper. This will have more surface area area, which means there will actually be more surface to latch onto something. Let's say, if you spill a liquid on it, it's much more likely to get into those crevices than it would be on a normal sheet of paper. Similarly, is the case for molecules as a molecule gets bigger or it has more surface area, the more likely it is to collide with each other, the more likely it is to effectively collide with another molecule therefore, and surface area increases. So too, does the rate of the reaction higher rate. I hope this helps. And I look forward to seeing you all in the next one