To Investigate the Rate of Reaction Between Calcium Carbonate and Hydrochloric Acid

Aim: To investigate the rate of reaction between Calcium Carbonate and Hydrochloric Acid.

Just from looking at the aim of the investigation I already know that a salt would be formed because a carbonate with an acid forms a salt. In this investigation the substance that is formed is Calcium Chloride, Water and Carbon Dioxide. The symbol equation for this is:

CaCo3  Ca2+ + Co32-

Hcl  H+ + Cl-

Add these all together to get

CaCO3(s) + 2H+(aq) --> Ca++(aq) + H2O + CO2(g)

The rate of reaction is just the speed at which the substances on the left side of equation turn into the substances on the right side. The way we measured the rate of reaction today was measuring the how quickly carbon dioxide gas was produced in each experiment.

A reaction occurs when particles collide. This process is based on random particle movement. So therefore, the more particles you have in a space, the more likely they going to collide. Therefore making the reaction accelerate. This theory can be proved if you compare the rate of reaction with marble in hydrochloric acid. 'If the acid is of a higher concentration, the reaction will be quicker.' Also if the particles have more energy, they will be traveling faster, making them collide more frequently.

In this investigation the factors that can change the rate of reaction are:

1. Temperature; when the temperature increases the particles moves faster, causing more collision in a certain time. Therefore the quicker the reaction. Another reason why the rate increases is that some colliding particles just ‘bounce’ off each other; they cannot ‘bang’ hard enough to create a reaction due to there being not enough energy. Basically the higher the temperature roughly doubles the rate of many reactions.

2. Surface Area; the smaller the pieces the larger the surface area becomes. We find that the small pieces of solid, especially powder react faster then large pieces. It is like frying two pans one with chips and the other with a potato. The surface area is measured of how much area is exposed. They both have the same mass however the chips have a larger surface area.

Reducing