Question

A solid tablet of sodium bicarbonate is dropped in a beaker of 5% acetic acid solution at room temperature. The resulting bubbling reaction (thanks to the production of carbon dioxide) takes about a minute. What are at least two specific things you can do to help speed up this reaction (unless you know the exact catalyst to use, don't say "Add a catalyst!)?

Answer 1

Ans :

The reaction is an endothermic reaction as more energy is required to break the bonds in reactant species than released while forming product species. So increasing the temperature of the system helps to speed up the reaction.

Secondly the reaction takes place in two steps , the first step being the formation of carbonic acid which eventually decomposes in the second step to form gaseous carbon dioxide.

Here a solid tablet of sodium bicarbonate is taken , which takes a while to completely dissolve in the solution. So in order to speed up the reaction , we can take the powdered tablet and put it into solution so that the increased surface area of the sodium bicarbonate kickstarts the reaction almost instantly.