Question

Rico is doing an experiment. He makes a solution of calcium carbonate in a beaker of 200 mL of water at room temperature (25 °C). He adds a small amount of lemon juice to the solution and a chemical reaction begins. Rico reduces the temperature of the solution by 10 °C by adding ice. As the solution cools, what will happen to the chemical reaction?

The chemical reaction will stop suddenly.
There will no change in the rate of the chemical reaction.
The chemical reaction will slow as the water cools.
The speed of the chemical reaction will increase as the water cools.

Answer 1

The chemical reaction that Rico is observing will slow down as the temperature of the solution is reduced by 10 °C due to the decrease in kinetic energy and effective molecular collisions.

Step-by-step explanation:

When Rico reduces the temperature of the solution by 10 °C by adding ice, the chemical reaction will slow as the water cools.

This behavior aligns with the general principle that most chemical reactions proceed at a slower rate as the temperature decreases.

The added ice lowers the kinetic energy of the molecules involved in the reaction, resulting in fewer effective collisions per unit time and thus a slower reaction rate.

In the reaction setup with limewater and the production of carbon dioxide that turns the limewater milky, temperature changes could similarly affect the rate at which carbon dioxide is produced and thus the rate at which the limewater turns milky.