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7: Chemical Reactions

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    521761
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    Chemical change is a central concept in chemistry. The goal of chemists is to know how and why a substance changes in the presence of another substance or even by itself. Because there are tens of millions of known substances, there are a huge number of possible chemical reactions. In this chapter, we will find that many of these reactions can be classified into a small number of categories according to certain shared characteristics.

    • 7.1: Introduction to Chemical Reactions
      A chemical reaction is the process in which one or more substances are changed into one or more new substances.
    • 7.2: Chemical Equations
      Chemical reactions are represented by chemical equations that list reactants and products. Proper chemical equations are balanced; the same number of each element’s atoms appears on each side of the equation.
    • 7.3: Entalpy and Entropy
      Heat is the amount of energy that is transferred from one system to its surroundings because of a temperature difference. All forms of energy can be interconverted. Three things can change the energy of an object: the transfer of heat, work performed on or by an object, or some combination of heat and work.
    • 7.4: Reaction Rate
      A measure of how quickly products form, is called the reaction rate. Reaction energy diagrams summarize the important information about a reaction in a single graph.
    • 7.5: Spontaneous Reactions and Free Energy
      The change in enthalpy and change in entropy of a reaction are the driving forces behind all chemical reactions. In this lesson, we will examine a new function called free energy, which combines enthalpy and entropy and can be used to determine whether or not a given reaction will occur spontaneously.
    • 7.6: Classifying Chemical Reactions
      The major types of chemical reactions are synthesis, decomposition, single replacement, double replacement, combustion, acid-base neutralization, and oxidation-reduction reaction.
    • 7.7: Quantitative Relationships Based on Chemical Equations
      A balanced chemical equation not only describes some of the chemical properties of substances—by showing us what substances react with what other substances to make what products—but also shows numerical relationships between the reactants and the products. The study of these numerical relationships is called stoichiometry.  A balanced chemical equation gives the ratios in which molecules of substances react and are produced in a chemical reaction.
    • 7.8: Mole-Mass and Mass-Mass Problems
      A balanced chemical equation can be used to relate masses or moles of different substances in a reaction.
    • 7.9: Redox Reactions in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry
      Redox reactions are common in organic and biological chemistry, including the combustion of organic chemicals, respiration, and photosynthesis.
    • 7.10: Reactions Involving Water
      Water is a reactant or product in a number of reactions important to biochemistry. In this section we will take a look at three of them with examples from organic chemistry. They are hydrolysis of esters, hydration of alkenes and dehydration of alcohols
    • 7.E: Introduction to Chemical Reactions (Exercises)
    • 7.S: Quantities in Chemical Reactions (Summary)
      To ensure that you understand the material in this chapter, you should review the meanings of the following bold terms in the following summary and ask yourself how they relate to the topics in the chapter.
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    This page titled 7: Chemical Reactions is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Sol Parajon Puenzo (Cañada College) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.