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CHEMISTRY
7. Rate of Reaction

Damsavi Jayashantha

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What is rate of reaction?

• Rate of rection if defined as the speed at which a reaction takes place.

The rate of a reaction, can be measured in terms of:
1) Amount/ volume of products produced per unit time.
2) Amount/ mass of reactants used up per unit time.

Eg: A reaction that produces a gas.

The gas produced from the reaction collects inside the syringe and the volume of gas
produced can be measured using it. The time taken is measured using the stopwatch.
(The volume of gas produced at different times are listed in the table next page). Finally
the rate can be calculated using the equation above.

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If this reaction took place for 10 minutes, and 55 cm3 of gas was produced in the
syringe, calculate the rate of reaction.

Calculate the rate of reaction at 30 seconds.

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If draw a graph for this rate of reaction, with time in x axis and volume of gas in y axis,
the graph will show as below.

• The gradient of this graph will show the rate of reaction

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60

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10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

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• So as the reaction progresses, the rate of the reaction reduces (the gradient/slope
of the graph decreases) as shown in the graph below.

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Why does rate of the reaction reduces with the time?
For reaction to take place, particles should collide with each other with sufficient
energy.
At the start of the reaction, lots of particles have not reacted so they collide very
frequently. This will cuse a high rate of reaction.
After some time, the number of unreacted particles reduce, so the chance of collisions
happening is less. Therefore the rate of reaction reduces.

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FACTORS AFFECTING RATE OF REACTION
1) Surface Area
2) Temperature
3) Concentration
4) Catalyst

1) SURFACE AREA

When the block is broken down to smaller particles, the surface area and the amount of
particles exposed to react are higher. So more frequent collisions take place, resulting in
increased rate of reaction.

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2) TEMPERATURE

When temperature increases, particles gain more kinetic energy and move faster.
Therefore, more frequent collisions with sufficient energy, will take place. This will
increase the rate of reaction.

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3) CONCENTRATION

Concentration is the amount of particles per unit volume. So higher concentration

means higher number of particles are closer together.
As a result of this, the particles will collide more frequently and the rate of rection will
be increased.

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4) CATALYST

What is a catalyst?
• A catalyst is substance that increases the rate of reaction, but remains
unchanged at the end of the reaction.

Enzymes are proteins that act as biological catalysts to increase the rate of a
reaction.

The presence of a catalyst does not change the final volume of product as shown in
the graph below. Only the rate (speed) of reaction will be changed

• In all the graphs the lines end at the same level at the end.
This is because all those conditions only change the rate (SPEED) of the reaction
and NOT THE AMOUNT OF FINAL PRODUCT.

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