chemical kinetics
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Chemical kinetics is the study of how fast chemical reactions happen and what factors control their speed. It matters because understanding reaction rates helps scientists and engineers predict how quickly medicines work in your body, how long food stays fresh, and how to design industrial processes that are safe and efficient.
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Article
Reaction coordinate diagram showing how a catalyst lowers the activation energy in an exothermic reaction.
Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is different from chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in which a reaction occurs but in itself tells nothing about its rate. Chemical kinetics includes investigations of how experimental conditions influence the speed of a chemical reaction and yield information about the reaction's mechanism and transition states, as well as the construction of mathematical models that also can describe the characteristics of a chemical reaction.