If the heat change of the surroundings (such as the solution the reaction is occurring in) is determined to be 2.7 kJ, what is the heat change of the reaction (qrxn)?
Answer: First of all we can conclude that this is an exothermic reaction. The reason being that an exothermic reaction is one that produces a temperature increase in a isolated system giving off heat to the surroundings. Therefore the heat of the reaction is a negative quantity (qrxn < 0).
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