5.1: Chemical Changes and Chemical Reactions
In Chapter 2 , we classified changes in our environment utilizing the concepts of physical and chemical changes. We said that a physical change alters the appearance of a substance without changing its molecular structure. Ice melts, water evaporates and mountains are slowly weathered into dust. All of these change the characteristics of substances, but they do not alter its basic structure. A chemical change , however, results in the transformation of one molecular substance into another. Gasoline burns, reacting with oxygen in the atmosphere, generating light, heat, and converting the carbon-based molecules into carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. When substances combine like this and undergo chemical changes, we say that a chemical reaction has occurred. Some chemical reactions are quite evident, like the burning of gasoline, and involve the production of heat or light . In other types of chemical reactions, gases are evolved, color changes occur and clear solutions become cloudy, with the ultimate formation of an insoluble substance (a precipitate ). Chemical changes can also be quite obscure and their occurrence can only be detected by sophisticated chemical analysis.
Sometimes chemical changes occur spontaneously, others require the input of energy (heat) in order to occur. Chemical reactions can occur rapidly, like the explosive reaction of sodium metal in the presence of water, and others occur very slowly, like the rusting of iron or the tarnish that slowly develops on some metal surfaces exposed to air. In this chapter we will learn to represent chemical reactions using chemical equations . We will learn to balance these equations, explore types of reactions and learn to predict products from simple reactions. Central to all of this is the concept of the chemical equation .