Physical and Theoretical ChemistryKinetics |
How is the rate of a reaction affected by temperature? |
The rate of a chemical reaction will generally increase with increasing temperature. This is because a higher temperature translates into a higher average energy per molecule, which makes it easier for molecules to surmount the energetic barrier to the reaction. In terms of how this fits into the rate equation, the rate constant k depends on temperature, and k almost always (but there are exceptions) increases with increasing temperature.