- This energy is needed to begin to break existing bonds in the reactants before new bonds in the product are formed
- If the particles have insufficient energy, they simply bounce off one another unchanged
Activation energy is 'the minimum energy that particles must have in order to react'
Effect of temperature changes
- Raising the temperature increases rate of reaction
- As the temperature increases, so does the proportion of molecules that have energy greater than the activation energy. Consequently, when the molecules collide, it is more likely that this will successfully lead to a reaction. This is the main reason for the rate increasing with temperature
- As the temperature increases, the molecules gain more kinetic energy so they are moving faster and therefore collide more often
Catalysts
A catalyst increases the rate of a reaction, but is not used up in the process. It does this by providing an alternative pathway of lower activation energy
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