What is kinetic energy distribution curve?
The area under the kinetic energy (Maxwell-Boltzmann) distribution curve represents the number of molecules within a given range of kinetic energies: ⚛ Small area under curve = small number of molecules. ⚛ Large area under curve = large number of molecules.
How is kinetic energy distributed?
The Kinetic Energy distribution curve spreads and flattens out. The most probable kinetic energy increases (the peak shifts to the right). The fraction of higher-energy molecules increases. The fraction of lower-energy molecules decreases.
What happens to the shape of the KE distribution curve of the reactant is used up at a constant temperature?
At a constant temperature, the shape of the curve won’t change, but individual particles will spend some of their time in the lower energy, unreactive region, and some time in the area where they have enough energy to react if they collide.
What is the Maxwell-Boltzmann graph?
A Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution is a probability distribution used for describing the speeds of various particles within a stationary container at a specific temperature. The distribution is often represented with a graph, with the y-axis defined as the number of molecules and the x-axis defined as the speed.
What will happen when kinetic energy of the reacting molecules increases?
As the average kinetic energy increases, the particles move faster and collide more frequently per unit time and possess greater energy when they collide. Both of these factors increase the reaction rate. Hence the reaction rate of virtually all reactions increases with increasing temperature.
What happens to the peak of the curve in the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution graph if temperature increases?
If we heat the gas to a higher temperature, the peak of the graph will shift to the right (since the average molecular speed will increase). As the graph shifts to the right, the height of the graph has to decrease in order to maintain the same total area under the curve.