law of mass action
- noun
- /lɔː əv mæs ˈækʃən/
- Specialized
:
ley de acción de masas
- The law of mass action states that increasing the concentration of reactants will speed up the reaction rate.
Examples
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There's also the statistics involved in the law of mass action, and that comes from counting molecules per volume, that is concentration.
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Free testosterone and free estradiol were calculated using the Sodergard formula, which is based on the law of mass action and assumptions of equilibrium binding.
Blog text (20) -
Clearly if you have more than one reaction in play, you have one law of mass action per reaction.
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In a chemical reaction, the rate depends on the concentrations of reactants according to the law of mass action.
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Chemists apply the law of mass action to predict how changes in concentration affect reaction rates.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines familiar words ('law', 'mass', 'action') so a learner could infer it's a scientific rule about how masses or quantities produce effects, giving a partial clue. However, the precise technical sense — that reaction rate is proportional to reactant concentrations — is specialized and not directly derivable from the constituents, so domain knowledge is required.
Etymology
The term law of mass action comes from a simple idea: more mass, meaning more 'amount' of the reacting stuff, makes more action, or more 'collisions' between particles. So it explains why increasing concentration makes a reaction go faster.
