Question

My homework was to choose a solid, liquid, or gas in my home and highlight 2 physical properties and 1 chemical property. And for each physical property, i have to identify if it is intensive. Could someone tell me a chemical property of a bed???

Answer 1

It's complex. Perhaps you could choose an object with more chemical purity.

Answer 2

Well, it's combustible. If you set a match to it, it will burn. That's a chemical property, and it makes the bed quite distinct from, say, your driveway. That's why you take out fire insurance on your house and not on your driveway.

Answer 3

Keep in mind every chemical property is related to a chemical reaction. So if you want to imagine the chemical properties of a substance or object, think of the chemical reactions it could undergo.

Chemical reactions that appear in your daily life include:

(1) Combustion (e.g. burning wood, gasoline or your morning toast).

(2) Corrosion (.e.g the rusting of steel).

(3) Metabolism (e.g. the "burning" of glucose to generate energy in a living cell).

(4) Photosynthesis.

(5) Fermentation (what goes on in wine- and beermaking, also some of the processes in the spoiling of food).

(6) Oxidation (what goes on when clothes fade, or plastics age and discolor in the sun).

(7) Chemotherapy (e..g what goes on when you take an aspirin for a headache, or vitamin C to ward off scurvy and colds, or what happens when you take antibiotics for an infection, or put iodine or antibiotic cream on a wound).

(8) Poisoning (e.g. what goes on when you put weed killer on the lawn).

(9) Fertilization (when you put fertilizer on the lawn, or your tomatoes).

(10) Acid-base reactions (what happens when you take an antacid, or use lemon juice to prevent your guacamole from turning brown, as well as how your baking powder or baking soda work in the oven).

(11) Pollution (what happens when NOx from your car exhaust hits the air, and how it generates acid rain or lung irritants).

Out in the real world, reduction is also an important chemical reaction, because it's how we get metals from metal ores. Synthesis is how we get plastics from petroleum.

There are probably many more, too.