Question
Question: How does collision theory relate to the increase of concentration which increases the rate of reacti...
How does collision theory relate to the increase of concentration which increases the rate of reaction?
Solution
Hint : Chemical reactions occur when two reactant molecules collide, each having minimum energy and proper orientation. Reactant concentration, physical state of the reactants, surface area, temperature and the presence of a catalyst are some factors that affect reaction rate.
Complete Step By Step Answer:
The rate of reaction refers to the speed at which the products are formed from the reactants in a chemical reaction. It gives some insight into the time frame under which a reaction can be completed. Reaction kinetics is the study of the rate of chemical reactions, and reaction rates can vary greatly over a large range of time scales. The two main factors that affect the rate of a chemical reaction are the nature of reactants and surface area.
According to the collision theory, increasing the concentration of one or more reactants increases the rate of reaction because a higher concentration of a reactant leads to more collisions of that reactant in a specific time scale. The physical state of reactants, number of reactants and complexity of reaction.
This is known as the activation energy - the energy that particles must collide with for a chemical reaction to occur. Not all collisions result in a reaction, only those with enough energy. With this knowledge, we have three ways of increasing the rate of reaction:
Increase the temperature. If the temperature is higher, particles have a higher kinetic energy so will be moving faster. This means that more collisions will occur, so the rate of reaction increases. Additionally, the particles themselves have more energy, so more collisions are likely to be above the activation energy
Increasing the pressure of concentration. This means there are more particles per unit volume in an area, so particles will be colliding more so there will be more frequent successful collisions
Increasing the surface area. Consider the image below, of aluminium ribbon on the left and aluminium powder on the right.
Note :
Pressure also affects the rate of chemical reaction. Pressure increases the concentration of gases which results in the increase of the rate of reaction in the direction of less gaseous molecules and decreases in the reverse direction.