Catalysis and Activation Energy

How do catalysts accelerate a chemical reaction? Catalysts provide a series of intermediate steps that require less activation energy. All reactions require some amount of energy input in order to occur. This is known as activation energy. Minimizing the amount of energy input allows reactions to occur more rapidly. The catalyst is not a reactant or product of the overall reaction. Instead, it is a part of a series of intermediate steps in which it may be consumed, but then produced again in the next step. Because of this, catalysts are not used up in a reaction. In this topic, you learned that the higher the amount of activation energy required, the less likely a reaction is to continue. Also, reactions with lower activation energy requirements occur more rapidly.

Think of catalysts as tunnels that cut through a mountain. Instead of exerting a lot of energy to traverse over the mountain, you can travel through the mountain on an alternate route. You could say that the tunnel route has lower activation energy.