Scribd
Upload
28 views7 pages

3.2 Reaction+Rates

Uploaded by

rebeccafrohock
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
28 views7 pages

3.2 Reaction+Rates

Uploaded by

rebeccafrohock
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7

Reaction Rates

Collision theory

The rate of a chemical reaction depends on two


things:

1. How often the reactant particles are colliding

2. How many collisions are successful

For reactants to collide successfully, they need to:

• Collide in the correct orientation and

• Collide with enough energy (more than the


activation energy).

The more frequent and successful the collisions


are, the faster the rate of reaction. The rate of
reaction depends on the following factors:

• Concentration (for liquids) / pressure (for


gases) – increasing the concentration or
pressure means you have more reactant
particles in a given volume, meaning there
are more frequent collisions.

• Surface area – increasing the surface area of


a solid reactant means that more particles
will be exposed, so there are more frequent
collisions.
• Temperature – increasing the temperature causes particles to move faster, so they
collide more frequently. The particles also have more energy, so a greater
proportion of the collisions will be successful.

• Catalyst – adding a catalyst will reduce the activation energy for the reaction.
Dropping the energy barrier means that more particles will have sufficient energy
to react, so there will be more successful collisions, increasing the rate of reaction.

You can calculate the rate of reaction by dividing the change in the amount of reactant
or product over time. For example, in a reaction where solid products are being converted
into gases, you could measure how much mass of solid was lost in a given amount of time.
Or you could measure the volume of gas formed in a given time.

You can calculate the rate of a reaction from


a graph by calculating its gradient. The
steeper the gradient, the faster the rate of
reaction.

To calculate the gradient from a straight-line


graph, pick two points on the line that are
easy to read and draw vertical and horizontal
lines to form a triangle. The gradient of the
line is equal to the change in y over the
change in x.
In the graph below, 8 mol dm-3 of NaCl was formed in 20 seconds. Therefore the gradient =
8 / 20 = 0.4, which means that the rate of reaction is 0.4 mol dm-3 s-1.

Catalysts

A catalyst speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction without being used up — or


chemically altered — in the process. It works by providing an alternative reaction pathway
that requires less activation energy. It’s a bit like finding a shortcut from your house to the
park: you start and end in the same place, but the simpler route requires less energy.

Since less energy is required, more particles will have sufficient energy to react. There will
be more successful collisions and therefore a faster rate of reaction.

This is shown in energy profile diagrams, where the upwards curve to get from the
reactants to the products is smaller.
Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts

Homogenous catalysts are catalysts which are in the same state (or phase) as the
reactants. For example, if the reactants are all aqueous, then a homogenous catalyst will
also be aqueous.

A homogenous catalyst works by forming an intermediate. The reactants will react with the
catalyst to form the intermediate, which will further react to reform the catalyst.

Look at how iron (II) ions catalyse the reaction between iodide ions and persulfate ions.
Fe2+ reacts with persulfate to form Fe3+, which then reacts with the iodide ions to regenerate
Fe2+.

Heterogeneous catalysts are in a different state/phase to the reactants. Using a solid


catalyst to catalyse a reaction between gases is an example of heterogeneous catalysis.

The reaction will happen on the surface of the catalyst, which means that increasing the
surface area of the solid catalyst will increase the reaction rate. Things like catalytic
converters will have a honeycomb structure to provide as much surface area as possible.

For a heterogeneous reaction, the surface area of the catalyst may act as a limiting factor
for rate of reaction. For instance, if the active sites of a solid catalyst are already saturated,
then increasing the pressure of the gaseous reactants will not be able to increase the rate
any further.
Benefits of using catalysts

Using catalysts isn’t just a time-saver but has huge benefits for industrial processes and
environmental sustainability. For example:

• Catalysts are used to make industrial processes cheaper and faster.


• Since catalysts allow reactions to take place at lower temperatures, less fuel
needs to be burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted, making the reaction
more sustainable.
• Catalysts can reduce waste by providing an alternative reaction pathway with
a higher atom economy.

Boltzmann distribution

Within a reaction, not all particles will have the same amount of energy — some have a little
energy, some have lots, but most will have an intermediate amount.

We can represent the proportions of particles with different amounts of energies in a


Boltzmann distribution graph. The y-axis tells us the number of molecules with a particular
amount of energy, with kinetic energy increasing as you go along the x-axis.

From the graph below, we can see that a small number of molecules have a low amount of
energy while most molecules have a moderate amount of energy. The downhill slope of the
graph shows that a few molecules have a very high amount of energy.
We can add the activation energy for a reaction to our Boltzmann distribution — any
particles that lie to the right of the activation energy barrier will have enough energy to
react.

Since catalysts work by lowering the activation energy, this increases the proportion of
particles in the reaction mixture with sufficient energy to react successfully.

Boltzmann distribution graphs can also be used to show how higher temperatures increase
reaction rate. At hotter temperatures, the particles will have more kinetic energy and start
moving faster. This means that a greater proportion of particles will exceed the activation
energy ‘barrier’ to react, so more of them will lie to the right-hand side of our activation
energy line.
The shape of the curve changes as temperature increases – it has a smaller peak and
shifts over to the right. The total number of particles hasn’t changed, so the area under the
curve should be equal to our curve at a lower temperature.

You might also like