Revision:Kinetics

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Chemistry > Kinetics

Kinetics is the study of how fast a reaction happens. Some chemical reactions take a very long time, while some can be finished in less than a second. The factors which affect how fast a reaction goes include:

• Concentration
• Temperature
• Pressure
• Surface area
• Presence of a catalyst

In all cases above, an increase in the factor results in an increase in the rate of reaction.

The collision theory was developed to try and explain some of the reasons for the different rates of reaction. This theory says that molecules have random energies, and reactions occur when molecules with enough energy to overcome the activation energy collide with each other, where the activation energy is the energy needed to break enough bonds to start the reaction. Using this theory, all the factors which affect the rate of a reaction will either increase the number of collisions, or the energy of each collision.

(Need some Maxwell Boltzmann graphs here)

(Need catalysed reaction profile)