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reaction rate
Sign in to saveAlso known as speed of reaction, rate of reaction
for a reactant or product in a particular reaction is intuitively defined as how quickly or slowly a reaction takes place
Key facts
- Common symbols
- ν
- Other units
- mol ⋅ L ⋅ s
- In si base units
- mol ⋅ m ⋅ s
- Dimension
- L ⋅ T ⋅ N
via Wikipedia infobox
~20 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Iron rusting has a low reaction rate. This process is slow. Wood combustion has a high reaction rate. This process is fast.
The reaction rate or rate of reaction is the speed at which a chemical reaction takes place, defined as proportional to the increase in the concentration of a product per unit time and to the decrease in the concentration of a reactant per unit time. Reaction rates can vary dramatically. For example, the oxidative rusting of iron under Earth's atmosphere is a slow reaction that can take many years, but the combustion of cellulose in a fire is a reaction that takes place in fractions of a second. For most reactions, the rate decreases as the reaction proceeds. A reaction's rate can be determined by measuring the changes in concentration over time.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “reaction rate” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.