Catalysts

Question 1

what is a catalyst?

Answer 1

a substance which increases the rate of reaction, without being chemically changed or used up in the reaction - because using a catalyst won’t change the products of the reaction, the equation will stay the same

Question 2

how do catalysts increase the rate of reaction?

Answer 2

• catalysts increase rate because they provide an alternative route with a lower activation energy
• so the percentage of collisions with enough energy is higher
• so there are more successful collisions per unit time