Explain how temperature can affect the speed of reaction. Give an example.

Chemical reactions proceed at different rates. The factors that affect reaction rates are:

surface area of a solid reactant

concentration or pressure of a reactant

temperature

nature of the reactants

presence/absence of a catalyst.

A change in one or more of these factors may alter the rate of a reaction. In this lesson, you will define these factors, and describe and predict their effects on reaction rates.

Surface Area

Surface area is the exposed matter of a solid substance.

Imagine that you are holding a perfect cube of magnesium. The surface area is the sum of the area of all six sides of the cube. The surface area of the cube can be increased by dividing the cube into smaller cubes. Surface area is maximized when a single large cube is crushed to fine powder.

The rate of reaction of a solid substance is related to its surface area. In a reaction between a solid and an aqueous/liquid/gas species, increasing the surface area of the solid-phase reactant increases the number of collisions per second and therefore increases the reaction rate.

In a reaction between magnesium metal and hydrochloric acid, magnesium atoms must collide with the hydrogen ions. When the magnesium atoms form one big lump ...

The concentration of a gas is a function of the pressure on the gas. Increasing the pressure of a gas is exactly the same as increasing its concentration. If you have a certain number of gas molecules, you can increase the pressure by forcing them into a smaller volume.

Under higher pressure or at a higher concentration, gas molecules collide more frequently and react at a faster rate. Conversely, increasing the volume of a gas decreases pressure which in turn decreases the collision frequency and thus reduces the reaction rate.

It is important to note however that there are reactions involving gases in which a pressure change does not affect the reaction rate. For this reason, the rates of reactions involving gases have to be determined by experiment.

Also note that solids and liquids are not affected by pressure changes.

Need a good analogy for the effect of concentration on the rate of a chemical reaction?

Temperature

With the exception of some precipitation reactions involving ionic compounds in solution, just about all chemical reactions take place at a faster rate at higher temperatures. The question is why?

Temperature (in Kelvin degrees) is proportional to the kinetic energy of the particles in a substance. For example, if the Kelvin temperature of a substance is doubled, then the average kinetic energy of the particles in that substance is doubled.

At higher temperatures, particles collide more frequently and with greater intensity.

Here's an analogy.

Imagine that you are baby-sitting a bunch of 6 year olds. You put them in a yard and you let them run around. Every now and then a couple of kids will run into each other. Now imagine that you decide to feed them some sugar. What happens? They run around faster and of course there are many more collisions. Not only that, the collisions are likely to be a lot harder/more intense.

Now, let's look at the effect graphically. Recall that in any sample of matter (the example we used previously was a gas), individual particles have different kinetic energies. Some are moving fast some are moving slowly, and most are moving at some intermediate speed.

Increasing the temperature by say 10°C causes some of the intermediate speed molecules to move faster. The result is more molecules with sufficient kinetic energy to form an activated complex upon collision!

Now consider the relationship between threshold kinetic energy and activation energy. Threshold kinetic energy is the minimum amount of energy required for colliding particles to react - it is the equivalent of activation energy or the minimum potential energy gain required to form an activated complex.

As you can see on the graph, a small increase in temperature can double the number of molecules with the threshold kinetic energy.

Thus there are two effects of increasing temperature: greater collision intensity and more frequent collisions.

A general rule is that a 10°C temperature increase can double a reaction rate. It turns out that the increase in the reaction rate is mainly a function of the more intense collisions. Increased collision frequency is not as significant a factor.