Question

What is the physical significance of activation energy?

Answer 1

Dear Student

As the activation energy is defined as the minimum amount of energy required to convert the reactant into product by passing the barrier potential.
As every molecule has kinetic energy and potential energy associated with it and when two molecule collide together in a proper orientation with a proper activation energy to surpass the potential to give the desired chemical product.
Activation energy are explained by Arrhenius equation:
$$\begin{gathered} k=A{e}^{-\raisebox{1ex}{$E_a$}\!\left/ \!\raisebox{-1ex}{$RT$}\right.}[E_a=Activationenergy] \\ [k=ratecons\tan t] \\ [T=temperature] \\ [A=frequencyfactor] \end{gathered}$$

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