107 Stories About Chemistry
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Why is this so? Because of the temperature. At room temperature (15-20°C) hydrogen reacts with oxygen only very slowly. But if we heat the container, its walls begin to sweat. and this is a sure sign that a reaction is occurring. At 550°C the container flies apart in tiny fragments, because at this temperature hydrogen reacts with oxygen eruptively. Why does heat accelerate this chemical process so, making the "tortoise" move like lightning? In the free state hydrogen and oxygen exist as the molecules H2 and O2. To combine into a water molecule they must collide. The more often such collisions take place the greater the probability that a molecule of water will form. At room temperature and ordinary pressure each hydrogen molecule collides with an oxygen molecule more than ten billion times per second. If each collision resulted in chemical interaction,
the reaction would proceed faster than an explosion, in the course of one
ten-billionth of a second.
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