Catalysts - How it works

Reactions and Collisions

In a chemical reaction, substances known as reactants interact with one another to create new substances, called products. In the present context, our concern is not with the reactants and products themselves, but with an additional entity, an agent that enables the reaction to move forward at faster rates and lower temperatures.

According to the collision model generally accepted by chemists, chemical reactions are the result of collisions between molecules. Collisions that are sufficiently energetic break the chemical bonds that hold molecules together; as a result, the atoms in those molecules are free to recombine with other atoms to form new molecules. Hastening of a chemical reaction can be produced in one of three ways. If the concentrations of the reactants are increased, this means that more molecules are colliding, and potentially more bonds are being broken. Likewise if the temperature is increased, the speeds of the molecules themselves increase, and their collisions possess more energy.

Energy is an important component in the chemical reaction because a certain threshold, called the activation energy ( E _a ), must be crossed before a reaction can occur. A temperature increase raises the energy of the collisions, increasing the likelihood that the activation-energy threshold will be crossed, resulting in the breaking of molecular bonds.

Catalysts and Catalysis

It is not always feasible or desirable, however, to increase the concentration of reactants, or the temperature of the system in which the reaction is to occur. Many of the processes that take place in the human body, for instance, "should" require high temperatures—temperatures too high to sustain human life. But fortunately, our bodies contain proteins called enzymes, discussed later in this essay, that facilitate the necessary reactions without raising temperatures or increasing the concentrations of substances.

An enzyme is an example of a catalyst, a substance that speeds up a reaction without participating in it either as a reactant or product. Catalysts are thus not consumed in the reaction. The

catalyst does its work—catalysis—by creating a different path for the reaction, and though the means whereby it does this are too complex to discuss in detail here, the process of catalyst can at least be presented in general terms.

Imagine a graph whose x-axis is labeled "reaction progress," while the y-axis bears the legend "energy." There is some value of y equal to the normal activation energy, and in the course of experiencing the molecular collisions that lead to a reaction, the reactants reach this level. In a catalyzed reaction, however, the level of activation energy necessary for the reaction is represented by a lower y-value on the graph. The catalyzed substances do not need to have as much energy as they do without a catalyst, and therefore the reaction can proceed more quickly—without changing the temperature or concentrations of reactants.