ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how quickly chemical reactions occur and what we can learn about how reactions occur from the rates at which they occur. Chemical kinetics, the study of the rates of reactions and the implication of these rates, relies on the experimental observation of reactions and the effects of changing conditions on their rates. It also makes an important connection between rates of chemical reactions, transition states, and the thermodynamic properties for processes at equilibrium. During the course of a chemical reaction, reactants are consumed and products are formed. The reactant concentrations decrease and the product concentrations increase until equilibrium is reached. The rate of decomposition of an ensemble of nanoparticles increases with temperature. This intuitive observation holds for any chemical reaction and is based on the premise that temperature represents average kinetic energy, and thus, molecules move faster at higher temperatures and are more likely to collide with each other, providing more opportunities to react.
