The rate of reaction between calcium carbonate and hydrochloric acid.

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        The rate of reaction between calcium carbonate and hydrochloric acid

                                         By Carly Moore

                                             10Y,J6

Planning:

Introduction

Reactions happen every minuet of every day right in front of us. Some take years i.e. the rusting of a car and some only take moments i.e. photosynthesis. Almost every process has a chemical reaction, even simple things that we take for granted i.e. stirring your sugar into your tea.

 The question I put across is what influences these reactions and their rates of change?

Different things are needed for chemical reactions to take place, but the one thing that must happen in all cases are particles must be coiled with energy, lots of energy. If the amount of energy is minimal then no reaction will take place. The amount of energy needed to take place is known as activation energy, New modular science compares it to a game of basket ball, ‘A high net makes it very difficult to score, where as if you have a low net its very easy to score point after point and succeed’.

Surface area affects the rate of reaction. A good and easy way to understand this is to compare it to a cup of tea and sugar. A lump of sugar in your tea may take some time to dissolve were as granulated sugar dissolves almost instantly. This is because granulated sugar has a large surface area (it covers more area) and it is all exposed to the liquid in to which it’s being dissolved. A lump of sugar has a small surface area and the inside of the cube is not yet exposed to the liquid there for taking longer for it to dissolve. You see it’s the size that makes a difference to the speed of reaction. The larger area it covers the faster the reactions happen. This is because there is much more area available for reaction.

Catalysts can also play a major part when looking at the speed of reactions. A catalyst increases the rate of reaction with out altering any thing else. Another bonus to a catalyst is it does not get used up, resulting in it being able to be used over and over again to speed up the reaction. There are a variety of catalysts, as different reactions need them for different reasons. Many of them are metals.

Catalyst/enzymes works by lowering the amount of energy needed for the reaction to take place. Catalyst are needed to be carefully looked after, if they contain the wrong chemical then the catalyst could become poisonous and stop working, I am told this in the book ‘New Modular Science’.

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Chemical reactions are greatly dependent on temperature. As the temperature goes up so does the rate of reaction. A simple 10 degrees Celsius rise wills often double the rate of reaction. The particles move about faster so they are more likely to collide. They also have more energy so when they do collide it is more likely to result in an effective collision.

 The concentration plays a big part in chemical reactions. I am told that when the concentration is lower the time of reaction is lower, and to the opposite, when the concentration is larger the reaction time ...

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