This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the inherent irreversibility in unsteady fractional time derivative mixed convection of a reacting nanofluid with heat and mass transfer mechanism over a slippery permeable plate embedded in a Darcy–Forchheimer porous medium. The model fractional partial differential equations are obtained based on conservation laws and numerically solved using the implicit finite difference scheme. The study displays and discusses the effects of various emerging parameters on the overall flow structure, such as velocity profiles, temperature distribution, nanoparticles concentration profiles, skin friction, Nusselt number, Sherwood number, entropy generation rate, and Bejan number. It was found that an increase in dimensionless time and fractional parameters leads to a decrease in both the entropy generation rate and the Bejan number. The study revealed that fractional order derivatives can capture intrinsic memory effects, non‐local behaviour, and anomalous diffusion in the nanofluid flow process. This can ultimately lead to better engineering system design and control.