For other uses, see Quenching A quench refers to a rapid cooling. In polymer chemistry and materials science, quenching is used to prevent low-temperature processes such as phase transformations from occurring by only providing a narrow window of time in which the reaction is both thermodynamically favorable and kinetically accessible. For instance, it can reduce crystallinity and thereby increase toughness of both alloys and plastics (produced through polymerization).In metallurgy, it is most