property to time
A rate is a measure of how some property varies with time. Speed is a familiar rate that expresses the distance traveled by an object in a given amount of time. Wage is a rate that represents the amount of money earned by a person working for a given amount of time. Likewise, the rate of a chemical reaction is a measure of how much reactant is consumed, or how much product is produced, by the reaction in a given amount of time. The rate of reaction is the change in the amount of a reactant or product per unit time. Reaction rates are therefore determined by measuring the time dependence of some property that can be related to reactant or product amounts. Rates of reactions that consume or produce gaseous substances, for example, are conveniently determined by measuring changes in volume or pressure. For reactions involving one or more colored substances, rates may be monitored via measurements of light absorption. For reactions involving aqueous electrolytes, rates may be measured via changes in a solutions conductivity. For reactants and products in solution, their relative amounts concentrations are conveniently used for purposes of expressing reaction rates. If we measure the concentration of hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, in an aqueous solution, we find that it changes slowly over time as the H2O2 decomposes, according to the equation: 2H 2 O 2 aq 2H 2 O l + O 2 g The rate at which the hydrogen peroxide decomposes can be expressed in terms of the rate of change of its concentration, as shown here: change in concentration of reactant time interval H 2 O 2 t H 2 O 2 t 1 2 = t2 t1.