Question

: hydrochloric acid reacts with the mineral calcite to produce carbon dioxide gas, water, and calcium chloride. based on what you have learned in activity a and activity b, what are three things you could do to make the reaction occur more quickly?

Answer 1

Following three things when applied could make the reaction to occur more quickly;

1) Increasing Temperature:
                                          Increase in temperature increases the Kinetic energy of molecules. This results in increase in the velocity and rate of collisions between reactants. Hence, greater the number of collisions between reactants per time greater will be the probability of formation of product per unit time.

2) Grinding Calcite:
                              Grinding of Calcium carbonate results in the increase of surface area of calcite. So greater the surface area greater is the exposure of Calcium carbonate to HCl molecules, hence the rate of formation of product increases.

3) Using Catalyst:
                            Very important. Catalyst when used decreases the activation energy and increase the rate of reaction by following methods.

                       a) Providing new pathway

                       b) weakening the bonds

                       c) providing surface area

                       d) holding up the reactant close to each other.