Chemical property

A chemical property is any feature of a material that shows up during or after a chemical reaction. This means you can only learn about these properties by changing what the substance is made of. Simply looking at or touching a substance won’t tell you its chemical properties; you have 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 things like a material’s ability to speed up reactions, called a catalytic property, are considered chemical properties.

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

Examples

Chemical properties are qualities that show up when a material changes in 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.