The speed of a reaction

10.1 Rates of reaction

Fast and slow
Some reactions are fast and some are slow. Look at these examples:

The precipitation of silver chloride, Concrete setting. This reaction is Rust forming on an old car. This is
when you mix solutions of silver quite slow. It will take a couple of usually a very slow reaction. It will
nitrate and sodium chloride. This days for the concrete to fully take years for the car to rust
is a very fast reaction. harden. completely away.

But it is not always enough to know just that a reaction is fast or slow.
In factories where they make products from chemicals, they need to know
exactly how fast a reaction is going, and how long it will take to complete.
In other words, they need to know the rate of the reaction.

What is rate?
Rate is a measure of how fast or slow something is. Here are some examples.

This plane has just flown 800 This petrol pump can pump out This machine can print
kilometers in 1 hour. It flew at petrol at a rate of 50 litres per newspapers at a rate of 10 copies
a rate of 800 km per hour. minute. per second.

From these examples you can see that:

Rate is a measure of the change that happens in a single unit of time.
Any suitable unit of time can be used – a second, a minute, an hour, even
a day.
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 The speed of a reaction

Rate of a chemical reaction

When zinc is added to dilute As time goes by, the gas bubbles Finally, no more bubbles appear.
sulfuric acid, they react together. off more and more slowly. The reaction is over, because all
The zinc disappears slowly, and a This is a sign that the reaction the acid has been used up. Some
gas bubbles off. is slowing down. zinc remains behind.

The gas that bubbles off is hydrogen. The equation for the reaction is:
  zinc 1 sulfuric acid zinc sulfate 1 hydrogen
Z
n (s) 1 H2SO4 (aq) ZnSO4 (aq) 1 H2 (g)
Both zinc and sulfuric acid get used up in the reaction. At the same time,
zinc sulfate and hydrogen form.
You could measure the rate of the reaction, by measuring:
 the amount of zinc used up per minute or
 the amount of sulfuric acid used up per minute or
 the amount of zinc sulfate produced per minute or
 the amount of hydrogen produced per minute.
For this reaction, it is easiest to measure the amount of hydrogen
produced per minute, since it is the only gas that forms. It can be collected
as it bubbles off, and its volume can be measured.
In general, to find the rate of a reaction, you should measure:
the amount of a reactant used up per unit of time or
the amount of a product produced per unit of time.

Q
1 Here are some reactions that take place in the home. Put 3 Suppose you had to measure the rate at which zinc is used
them in order of decreasing rate (the fastest one first). up in the reaction above. Which of these units would be
a raw egg changing to hard-boiled egg suitable? Explain your choice.
b fruit going rotten a litres per minute
c cooking gas burning b grams per minute
d bread baking c centimetres per minute
e a metal tin rusting 4 Iron reacts with sulfuric acid like this:
2 Which of these rates of travel is slowest? Fe (s) 1 H2SO4 (aq) FeSO4 (aq) 1 H2 (g)
5 kilometres per second
a Write a word equation for this reaction.
20 kilometres per minute
b W
 rite down four different ways in which the rate of
60 kilometres per hour
the reaction could be measured.

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