Question #2337e
1 Answer
false
Explanation:
As you increase the temperature the rate of reaction increases. As a rough approximation, for many reactions happening at around room temperature, the rate of reaction doubles for every 10°C rise in temperature.
Collisions only result in a reaction if the particles collide with enough energy to get the reaction started. This minimum energy required is called the activation energy for the reaction.
Only those particles represented by the area to the right of the activation energy will react when they collide. The great majority don't have enough energy, and will simply bounce apart.
If you now mark the position of the activation energy, you can see that although the curve hasn't moved very much overall, there has been such a large increase in the number of the very energetic particles that many more now collide with enough energy to react.
Therefore I conclude that...
Increasing the temperature increases reaction rates because of the disproportionately large increase in the number of high energy collisions. It is only these collisions (possessing at least the activation energy for the reaction) which result in a reaction.
