Physical and Chemical Changes

What is a Physical Change?

Sometimes you can change a substances appearance, but you still have the same
particles. If you melt or boil something, break something, dissolve something or grind
something up into a powder, you have changed its appearance but not actually
what it is made of. You still have the same stuff.

For example, when you freeze water to make ice, you still have water. It’s just that
now, instead of liquid, it’s a solid. The particles are still water molecules.

If you crunch up a packet of chips so there are only crumbs, you don’t have chips
any more. But the crumbs are still made of the same stuff – the same molecules –
that the chips were. You havne’t made anything new, just changed the form of
what you had.

When you change something but still have the same stuff, this is called a physical
change.

What is a Chemical Change?

It is possible to change things into something completely new. If you burn

something, cook something, or actually use something in any kind of chemical
reaction, you will make something new.

For example, when you burn a piece of wood, you end up with ash. The wood is
gone – and so is some oxygen from the air. You now have ash, and you have
added some carbon dioxide and water in the air.

This is called a chemical reaction, or a chemical change. We can show this change
using a word equation:
Wood + Oxygen  Ash + Carbon Dioxide + Water

The things you had at the start are called reactants. They get used up. The things
you end up with are called products.

During a chemical reaction, the atoms in the reactants get rearranged to make the
products. The things you end up with are completely new substances.