UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS

TKU 3023
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION
IN CHEMISTRY

ASSIGNMENT : SIMULATION

TITLE : EFFECT OF SURFACE AREA ON THE RATE

OF REACTION

NAME MATRIC NUMBER

SITI NOR AMIRA BT ZINOL D20081032278
NOR MADIHAH BT ALI D20081032310

GROUP : B ( THURSDAY- 1P.M-4P.M)

LECTURER’S NAME : MISS ASMAYATI BINTI YAHAYA
DATE OF SUBMITTED : 8 th OCTOBER 2009

EFFECT OF SURFACE AREA ON THE RATE OF REACTION

Teacher’s guide / Chemistry Form 5 / Spreadsheet

Chemical reaction will occur when the reactant are mix together. The reaction
rate or rate of reaction for a reactant or product in a particular reaction is intuitively
defined as how fast a reaction takes place. For example, the oxidation of iron under the
atmosphere is a slow reaction which can take many years, but the combustion of butane
in a fire is a reaction that takes place in fractions of a second.
The quantity of the reactant will be decrease while the quantity of product will
increase within the time during the reaction occur. Therefore the rate of reaction can be
determine by measure the decreasing of reactant or producing the product of the reaction.

Rate of reaction = The changes of quantity of reactant

Time taken
The rate of reaction is increase if the time taken is short to complete the reaction. While,
the rate of reaction is decrease if the rate of reaction take long time to complete the
reaction.
One of the factor that effect the rate of reaction is surface area .If one of the
reactants is a solid, the surface area of the solid will affect how fast the reaction goes. If
a solid reactant or a solid catalyst is broken down into smaller pieces the rate of reaction
increases. The speed increase happens because smaller pieces of the same mass of solid
have a greater surface area compared to larger pieces of the solid. Therefore, there is
more chance that a reactant particle will hit the solid surface and react. The diagrams
below illustrate the acid–marble chip reaction (slower => faster).
 ENGAGE

THE SOLUBILITY OF DIFFERENT SALT

Powder Of Salt Thick Piece Of Salt

1. Why we put different type of salt to the water ?

2. Which salt have a greater surface area ? thick piece of salt or powder of salt?
3. Which salt will be soluble first in the water?
4. Why thick piece of salt soluble in the water slower than powder of salt ?
5. How could this happen ?
 EMPOWER

1. Students plan an experiment to observe the effect of surface area on the rate of
reaction

2. They are given the following apparatus :

• Gas syringe
• Erlenmeyer Flask
• Retort stand
• Beaker
• Stopper

3. They are given the following material

• Water
• HCl
• Thick piece of marble
• The middle size of marble
 • Powder of marble

4. Students are asked to plan an experiment to show that thick piece of marble and
powder of marble have different rate of reaction with acid hydrochloric

5. Students should know the effect of surface area on the rate of reaction

6. Students have to construct a hypothesis before doing the experiment

7. Help students to determine the variables involve

8.The procedures of conducting the experiment is discussed

9. When a gas formed from a marble reacting with a solution, it can be collected in a gas
syringe. The time will be taken and observe the rate of reaction.

10. Log on to the website and observe the animation to answer the question
http://freezeray.com/flashFiles/RatesOfReactionSurfaceArea.swf

* To activate the animation please click on the marble and to reset please click on the
stopper
Results:

The apparatus of experiment

The reaction between HCl and thick piece of marble

The reaction between HCL and the middle piece of marble

The reaction between HCl and the powder of marble

Questions

Based on the simulation above:

1. What is the factor that influence the rate of reaction ?

2. Which one of marble will produce more carbon dioxide in a short time ?
3. Why the powder of marble will produce more carbon dioxide in a short time ?
4. What is the effect of the rate of reaction when we use different size of the
marble?
5. How does surface area effect a chemical of reaction ?
6. What is the variable we keep constant in this experiment ?

Answer :

1. The factor that influence the rate of reaction is surface area

2. Powder of marble
3. The powder of marble will produce more carbon dioxide in a short time when react with HCl
because it has large surface area. So it will increase the rate of reaction.
4. When we use powder of marble the reaction rate will be increase while when we use the
thick piece of marble, the reaction rate will be lower and when we use the middling piece of
marble the rate of reaction also in the middle
5. If one of the reactants is a solid, the surface area of the solid will affect how fast the reaction
goes. This is because the two types of molecule can only bump into each other at the liquid
solid interface, i.e. on the surface of the solid. So the larger the surface area of the solid, the
faster the reaction will be.Smaller particles have a bigger surface area than larger particle for
the same mass of solid. There is a simple way to visualize this. So in this experiment powder
of marble have a bigger surface area and thick piece of marble have smaller surface area
6. We keep constant the temperature of experiment, mass of marble that we use , concentration
and volume of HCl
 ENHANCE

Picture 1 Picture 2

1. From your knowledge, what is the gas needed for coal burning process occur?

2. What is the difference between both of the coal picture above?

3. Why small coal is easy to burn compared to the big one?

1. The gas needed for coal burning process occur is oxygen

2. The picture 1 shows that the size of coal is small and in picture 2, it shows that the size
of coal is big.

3. The small size of coal is easy to burn because it has large surface area. In this
situation, the total surface area that exposes to the air is increase. So, the reaction with
oxygen ( burning process) occur fastly compared to the big size of coal which is only
has small surface area that is bare to the air.