what do you understand by the activation energy of a reaction and how does it relate to collision theory?
The Activation Energy of Chemical Reactions. Only a small fraction of the collisions between reactant molecules convert the reactants into the products of the reaction. This can be understood by turning, once again, to the reaction between ClNO 2 and NO.atalysts increase the rates of reactions by providing a new mechanism that has a smaller activation energy, as shown in the figure below. A larger proportion of the collisions that occur between reactants now have enough energy to overcome the activation energy for the reaction.