Question

Student is studying the rate of the following chemical reaction: C2H4O+NaOH - H2O + NaC2H3O knowing that this is an exothermic reaction he is measuring the rate of the reaction by timing how quickly the reaction vessel heats up he notices that if he adds HCl to this reaction the rate increases dramatically he also determines that the HCl is being used up during the reaction is the HCl A catalyst for this reaction

Answer 1

Here a catalyst is a substance that lowering the  activation of a chemical reaction and finally increases the rate of reaction without involving in the reaction process it just alter the speed of reaction without effecting the position of equilibrium and catalyst must remained unchanged in mass chemical composition at the end of the reaction.

In the above scenario it mentions that HCl is being used up during the reaction process so HCl is not a catalyst