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Iodine Clock Reaction Essay

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The ‘Landolt iodine clock reaction’ is a well known experiment characterised by a notable clear-to-blue colour change, this experiment is often used to determine the rate at which reactions take place. This colour change takes place when I2 reacts with 1% starch to form a blue starch and iodine solution. The rate of reaction is accurately recorded with a stopwatch as soon as a blue colour change is visible.

Rates of chemical reactions can be defined as “the amount of a particular reactant consumed in mol/L per second” (Anon, 2017) These rate laws have crucial effects in everyday life, There are five factors which can affect a reaction rate. They are temperature, concentration, the presence of a catalyst, surface area and the nature of a substance. This area of chemistry is commonly known as chemical kinetics and it is “the study of the rates at which chemical reactions occur, the factors that affect the speed of reactions, and the mechanisms by which reactions proceed.” (Deoudes, 2010) The knowledge of how to speed up or slow down reactions is used to control and improve chemical reactions commercially.

For such reactions to occur, “the atoms or ions or molecules must collide together, in the right orientation and enough energy for that reaction to occur.” (Anon, 2017) This is more commonly known as collision theory. The energy required for such reactants to interact is the activation energy.

For this experiment, in order to increase the overall rate of reaction, the

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