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Unit 8.4: Concentration Effects on Reaction Rates

Nov 15, 2024

Factors Affecting Reaction Rates: Concentration

Key Concept

  • Changing the concentration of reactant molecules can influence the rate of a chemical reaction.

Increasing Concentration

  • Effect: More particles are present in the same volume, leading to an increase in the number of collisions.
  • Analogy: Similar to having more small children running around in a room, leading to more collisions between them.

Collision Theory

  • Collision Frequency: More reactant particles result in more collisions per second.
  • Successful Collisions:
    • If temperature remains constant, the average kinetic energy of particles remains unchanged.
    • The proportion of successful collisions remains constant, but the overall number of successful collisions increases due to the higher frequency of total collisions.

Summary

  • Increasing the concentration of reactants while maintaining the same temperature increases the rate of reaction by increasing the number of collisions and thus the frequency of successful collisions.