rate of reaction

The first 200 words of this essay...

Rates of reaction

The rate of reaction is the speed that a reaction takes place and how long it occurs for. Chemical reactions only occur when reacting particles collide with each other with sufficient energy to react. The minimum amount of energy required to cause this reaction is called the activation energy. There are different variables to consider when measuring the rates of reaction. These can include catalysts, surface area, temperature or concentration of the liquid. These being changed can either increase or decrease the rate at which the reaction takes place.

* Temperature: in a cold reaction mixture the particles are moving quite slowly-the particles will collide with each other less often, with less energy, and fewer collisions will succeed to occur. However if we heat the reaction mixture the particles create kinetic energy and will move more quickly-the particles will collide more often. It is hard to measure accurately the temperatures and will be hard to keep precise when obtaining evidence so I won't experiment with the temperature.

* Concentration: in a reaction where a reactant is low in concentration, the particles are spread out and will collide with each other less often resulting