5. What drives chemical change?
“What drives chemical change?” is a question of why chemical processes happen. Chemical reactions occur to different extents and at different rates. To what extent reactants will be converted into products depends on the relative potential energy of their submicroscopic components as well as on the relative configurations these components can adopt. The speed of a process depends on the mechanism of the reaction and on the concentration of those species that limit the reaction rate. Both reaction extent and rate are affected by the temperature of the system. Understanding the drivers of chemical change is critical for predicting, explaining, and controlling processes of interest, from making soap to reducing pollution.