Factors, Which Affect the Rate of Reaction

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Khayrul Motaleb                11Gr

Factors, Which Affect the Rate of Reaction

There are certain factors which affect the rates of reaction in an experiment.  These factors are:

  • Pressure
  • Temperature
  • Concentration
  • Surface area / particle size     and
  • The addition of a catalyst

The factors that I will be concentrating on are temperature, concentration and surface area / particle size.

Pressure

        Pressure influences the rate of reaction only when the reactants are in their gas phase.  Pressure does not affect them much when they are either solids or liquids.  By increasing the pressure, you squeeze the molecules together so you will increase the frequency of collisions between them and their surrounding container.

Temperature

        When the temperature of a reaction increases, heat is supplied to the particles of the reactants involved.  This heat energy is converted into kinetic energy which all of the particles acquire.  This means that more particles collide with each other per second.   In addition, the faster the particles are travelling, the greater proportion of them which will have the required minimum energy for reaction to occur, for example, raising the temperature of a reaction by 10°c will double the rate of the reaction.

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Concentration

        A chemical reaction will occur only if the particles of the reacting substances are allowed to come into contact.  This is based on the kinetic theory:

        The rate of reaction would be expected to depend on the frequency with which the particles collide, which in turn will depend (among other factors) on their density, i.e. on their concentration.  The more crowded the particles are, the more often we should expect them to bump into each other.

Surface Area

A solid in a solution can only react when particles collide with the surface.  The bigger the ...

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