The Influence of Temperature on Chemical Reactions

Mrs. Batcha 816 December 2017 Research paper How does temperature affect the speed of a chemical reaction? How the temperature affects the chemical reaction rate is by increasing the temperature causes molecules to move faster, so there’s an increased chance of them colliding with each other and reacting. By increasing the temperature also increases the average kinetic energy of the molecules. However, for any chemical reaction to occur, the reactant particles must collide with each other. Notice that at the lower temperature, few of the reactant molecules have the minimum amount of kinetic energy needed to provide the activation energy. At the higher temperature, many more molecules possess the minimum amount of kinetic energy needed, which means a lot more collisions will be energetic enough to lead to reaction.

By increasing the temperature not only increases the number of collisions but also increases the number of collisions that are effective — that transfer enough energy to cause a reaction to take place. At a given temperature, all the molecules aren't moving with the same kinetic energy. A few molecules are moving very slow (low kinetic energy), while a few are moving very fast (high kinetic energy). A vast majority of the molecules are somewhere in between these two extremes. In fact, temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules. As you can see in the figure, increasing the temperature increases the average kinetic energy of the reactants, essentially shifting the curve to the right toward higher kinetic energies.But also notice the minimum amount of kinetic energy needed by the reactants to provide the activation energy (the energy required to get a reaction going) during collision. The reactants have to collide at the reactive site, but they also have to transfer enough energy to break bonds so that new bonds can be formed. If the reactants don’t have enough energy, a reaction won’t occur even if the reactants do collide at the reactive site.The particles collide more often in higher temps and more of the collisions are successful. But for colder temps that isn't the case it will be less likely to happen.

For a reaction to happen, reactant particles must collide with enough energy for the collision to be successful. The rate of reaction increases if there is an increase in temperature, concentration of reactants in solution or pressure of gaseous reactants. These changes can be explained in terms of the rate of successful collisions.A collision with too little energy will not produce a reaction. The colliding particles must have enough energy for the collision to be successful or effective in producing a reaction. The rate of a reaction depends on the rate of successful collisions between reactant particles. The more successful collisions there are, the faster the rate of reaction.