Rate of chemical reactions in chemistry and everyday life by @katiewest || 31-7-22 || Club5050

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Greetings to you all, fellow Steemians. Hope your weekend is relaxing. Being in this community has been an amazing journey and I would love to continue contributing to its growth.

Today, I will be talking on a topic in Chemistry. My aim is always to break into bits important topics that will help Steemians in their various walks of life.

Rate of Chemical Reactions

In Chemistry, we learn a lot about chemical reactions. So today, we will see the things can can influence the rate/time for these reactions to occur.

The rate of chemical reaction is the time taken to convert the number of moles of reactants or the product formed. That is, it is the time taken for the reactants(on the left side) to change to the product(on the right side).

Factors That Affect Rate of Chemical Reaction.

1. Nature of Reactants: The reactants involved affects the time for the reaction to occur. This is because some elements react faster with others and slower with another.

2. Concentration of Reactants: The higher the concentration of the reactants, the higher and faster for the reaction to occur.

3. Temperature: The rate of almost all the chemical reactions increases with an increase in temperature. This is because the reacting particles have a greater kinetic energy and speed when temperature is increased.

4. Surface Area: The greater the surface area, the faster the rate of reaction. A powdered element/substance will react faster compared to a solid substance of the same element because the powdered form of the element has a greater surface area.

5. Presence of Catalyst: A catalyst is a substance that changes the rate of a chemical reaction. It may slow down or speed up the reaction depending on the catalyst used. Therefore, the presence of a catalyst affects the rate of the chemical reaction.

Illustrations

• Temperature: Let's take a quick look at the water we boil on daily basis. If you are using a gas cooker to boil the water, it would be fast reach its max. Now, this gas cylinder has regulators that controls the amount of heat coming out of it. If we increase the temperature, the water reacts to the temperature and heats faster but if we reduce the temperature, it takes time to heat.

• Surface Area: Let's take a quick look at a ground piece of chalk and a big lump of chalk.
  If you put the full lump of chat inside water and the ground chalk into another glass of water, which one dissolves fast? The ground chalk right? Why? Because the surface area is large to volume ratio. It makes it possible for the water to accumulate or dissolve the chalk easily $5 than the lump.

Cc,
@ngoenyi
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