endothermic reaction
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chemical reaction that requires or absorbs energy from surroundings
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- endothermic process
Show 2 more facts
- opposite of
- exothermic reaction
- different from
- endothermic process
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Encyclopedic overview
An endothermic process is a chemical or physical process that absorbs heat from its surroundings. In terms of thermodynamics, it is a thermodynamic process with an increase in the enthalpy H (or internal energy U) of the system. In an endothermic process, the heat that a system absorbs is thermal energy transfer into the system. Thus, an endothermic reaction generally leads to a decrease in the temperature of the surroundings.
The term was coined by 19th-century French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. The term endothermic comes from the Greek ἔνδον (endon) meaning 'within' and θερμ- (therm) meaning 'hot' or 'warm'.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “endothermic reaction” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.