Endothermic and exotermic reactions question
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Endothermic and exotermic reactions question

[From: ] [author: ] [Date: 12-10-02] [Hit: ]
You should not think of the product getting cold from an exothermic reaction, if you touch ashes they can burn you, and that is an exothermic reaction. Vice versa for endothermic reactions. Heat is absorbed or released but it is still in the immediate environment and resultant compounds. Remember heat is really just a measure of how energetic something is which manifests as particles (atoms and molecules in this case) moving faster or slower.......
I'm a little unsure on endothermic and exotermic reactions. an endothermic reaction absorbs heat (the product will become hot) and an exothermic reaction gives off heat (the product will become cold) But if i react two products together will exo and endo occur at the same time? Because, for example in a replacement reaction one product gains some more energy and the other loses energy.

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Yes endothermic reaction means the stuff has "eaten" some heat, becoming more hot, and exotermir reaction means the stuff has given off heat, becoming more cold.

These reactions talk about the result, not the process. In some complex reactions it goes endothermic, then exotermic, then edothermic and you get a net of exothermic reaction as result due to the magnitudes.

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Well you got some stuff just a little wrong. You should not think of the product getting cold from an exothermic reaction, if you touch ashes they can burn you, and that is an exothermic reaction. Vice versa for endothermic reactions. Heat is absorbed or released but it is still in the immediate environment and resultant compounds. Remember heat is really just a measure of how energetic something is which manifests as particles (atoms and molecules in this case) moving faster or slower.

Really though you ask a good question, which is quite applicable to chemistry in general. You talk about double replacement reactions. You must think about the kind of double replacement reactions you are talking about. In high school you do up these things, and both products are often aqueous, well that is not really what happens in solution for all of them, often one precipitates out as a solid. This sort of change will either release energy or absorb energy, usually it is slightly endothermic. dissolving a solid is usually exothermic. The thing you should think about with these terms is not the energy content of the products versus the reactants but the overall energy of the system. Was there a net energy loss or a net energy gain in this chemical reaction? Was it driven by "going over the hump to a lower energy level (exothermic), or was the reaction so fast that it was able to go over the hump to a higher energy level (endothermic).

So in any given reaction it is the net energy loss or gain that is important (in the terms you are asking about) and not the specific energy content of the products. In a solution double replacement reaction, you might actually have equilibrium, were there is no net energy gain or loss over time or reaction space.

I hope this helps.
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