 What are the effects of surface area on a reaction rate? In this experiment, we're going to look at the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen gas. In order for us to see the oxygen gas produced, I'm going to put four drops of detergent in each of our graduated cylinders. And then I'm going to add 10 milliliters of hydrogen peroxide. I have cut four 1 centimeter cube pieces of potato. So in one, we're going to have just that surface area. In two, I'm going to cut them in half. So this one will have more surface area. And this one I'm going to cut in fourths. So we're increasing the surface area. And this one I'm going to cut in sixteenths. I'm going to drop one in each of our graduated cylinders, and we're going to time them. Since I can't do them all at one time, I'm going to drop them in at 10 second intervals. And then when we go back and collect our data, we can add 10 to these consecutively. After five minutes has passed, you can see that the increased surface area, the rate of oxygen produced is much greater. If we graph this data, you would find that it's actually exponential. You can see the line that starts from the first one and curves slightly upward to the last one.