The reaction rate (rate of reaction) or speed of reaction for a reactant or product in a particular reaction is intuitively defined as how fast or slow a reaction takes place. For example, the oxidation of iron under the atmosphere is a slow reaction that can take many years, but the combustion of butane in a fire is a reaction that takes place in fractions of a second.
Chemical kinetics is the part of physical chemistry that studies reaction rates. The concepts of chemical kinetics are applied in many disciplines, such as chemical engineering, enzymology and environmental engineering.
Read more about Reaction Rate: Formal Definition of Reaction Rate, Factors Influencing Rate of Reaction, Rate Equation, Temperature Dependence, Pressure Dependence, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words reaction and/or rate:
“Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This is the essential distinction—even opposition—between the painting and the film: the painting is composed subjectively, the film objectively. However highly we rate the function of the scenario writer—in actual practice it is rated very low—we must recognize that the film is not transposed directly and freely from the mind by means of a docile medium like paint, but must be cut piece-meal out of the lumbering material of the actual visible world.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)