Question

Discuss the physical and chemical properties of matter and how you can determine physical and chemical changes. What do you think would change in your everyday life if matter could not change?

Answer 1

All properties of matter are either extensive or intensive and either physical or chemical. Extensive properties, such as mass and volume, depend on the amount of matter that is being measured. Intensive properties, such as density and color, do not depend on the amount of matter. Both extensive and intensive properties are physical properties, which means they can be measured without changing the substance's chemical identity. For example, the freezing point of a substance is a physical property: when water freezes, it's still water (H₂O)—it's just in a different physical state.

A chemical property, meanwhile, is any of a material's properties that becomes evident during a chemical reaction; that is, any quality that can be established only by changing a substance's chemical identity. Chemical properties cannot be determined just by viewing or touching the substance; the substance's internal structure must be affected for its chemical properties to be investigated.

Physical properties are properties that can be measured or observed without changing the chemical nature of the substance. Some examples of physical properties are:

• color (intensive)
• density (intensive)
• volume (extensive)
• mass (extensive)
• boiling point (intensive): the temperature at which a substance boils
• melting point (intensive): the temperature at which a substance melts

On the other hand, chemical property is that measuring that property must lead to a change in the substance's chemical structure. Examples of chemical propertiesa are as follows:

• Heat of combustion is the energy released when a compound undergoes complete combustion with oxygen. The symbol for the heat of combustion is ΔH_c.
• Chemical stability refers to whether a compound will react with water or air (chemically stable substances will not react). Hydrolysis and oxidation are two such reactions and are both chemical changes.
• Flammability refers to whether a compound will burn when exposed to flame. Again, burning is a chemical reaction—commonly a high-temperature reaction in the presence of oxygen.
• The preferred oxidation state is the lowest-energy oxidation state that a metal will undergo reactions in order to achieve (if another element is present to accept or donate electrons).