Question

Explain why heating a mixture of lumps of sulfur and zinc does not lead to reaction nearly as rapidly as heating a mixture of powdered sulfur and zinc.

Answer 1

For a given mass, a substancel in the powdered form will have greater surface area than thebulk material.

As the surface area increases, the number of surface atoms/molecules also increses.This means that more atoms/molecules are exposed for chemical reaction when the substance is in the powdered form.

This explains why heating a mixture of lumps of sulfur and zinc does not lead to reaction nearly as rapidly as heating a mixture of powdered sulfur and zinc.