Question

What is the activation energy of a reaction, and how is this energy related to the activated complex of the reaction?

Short answer

A chemical reaction is the effective collision of the two or more reactants colloid to produce energy more than activation energy to form the desired product. The activation energy can be defined as the threshold energy after which the reaction occurs.

Step-by-step solution

Reaction Rate

The reaction involved the effective collision of two reactants to produce the desired products. Reactions can be natural, which occur in the surrounding environment, whereas it can be artificially done in the laboratory to form a desired required product.

The reaction rate can be defined as the reaction speed to produce the products. The reaction rate can be slow, fast or moderate. The reaction can take less than a millisecond to produce products, or it can take years to produce the desired product.

Explanation

The activation energy can be defined as the threshold energy (which is called the minimum amount of energy) after which the reaction takes place. A chemical reaction can take place because of the effective collision of the two or more reactants, which produces energy more than the threshold energy (minimum energy).

‘Activation energy’ term was used by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, in the year 1889.

The unit of the Activation energy is Joule or kcal/mole.

The activation energy can depend upon the nature of the molecule or the bonding present in the molecule. If the bonding is strong, then the activation energy is high.

The activation energy also depends upon if any catalyst involves in the reaction because catalysts lower down the activation energy.