Quenching

Quenching means to stop the reaction and make the current condition unchanged these
methods are used to stop the reaction so that the moment is frozen in time and titration can
be performed to find out the amount of substance left there, e.g. A+BC, and then after a
certain time period you take out a sample of the solution to titrate to find out the amount of
A or B unreacted
1. Freeze the reaction with an ice bath (put the sample youve taken out into a beaker
that is iced)
2. Unlimited dilution. Put the sample into a conical flask with a lot of water, so a huge
amount of distilled water is added to the sample. This means that the reactants
molecules can hardly touch each other so there is a lack of collision and they cannot
reach. The amount of substance is unchanged so it will not affect the titration results
3. Remove the catalyst by neutralizing it, e.g. with sodium hydroxide

Apart from titration, the iodometric method can be used. This is usually used in a redox
reaction. At the middle of the reaction you add iodine to the sample, so that the iodine will
react with the oxidizing agent. Then, with the amount of iodide formed you could use
titration to find out the original amount of oxidizing agent. The most common example is:
I
2
+ 2S
2
O
3
2-
S
4
O
6
2-
+ 2I
-