Chemical property

A chemical property is a special feature of a material that shows up during or after a chemical reaction. You can only learn about these properties by changing what the substance is made of. Just looking at or touching a substance won’t tell you its chemical properties; you need to change its internal structure.

When a substance goes through a chemical reaction, its chemical properties change a lot, leading to a chemical change. Even a material’s ability to speed up reactions, called a catalytic property, is a chemical property.

Chemical properties are different from physical properties, which you can notice without changing the substance’s structure. But sometimes, especially in physical chemistry and physics, it can be hard to tell them apart. Both physical and chemical properties depend on what the material is really made of. These properties help scientists classify materials and identify unknown substances. Knowing the chemical properties of a substance helps decide how it can be used.

Examples

Chemical properties are qualities that show when a material changes during a reaction. Some examples include how much heat a material gives off when it burns, how stable it is in different conditions, and whether it can catch fire easily. Other examples are how a material reacts with other substances, whether it can break down other materials, and its ability to act in acidic or basic ways.