Eli5: What does a catalyst do to reduce activation energy ?

Question

Whenever I search about this, it always just say they reduce activation energy and provide alternate reaction path but what is it actually doing to achieve this ?

In: 3

Answer 1

A catalyst is a chemical that helps to speed up a chemical reaction without being used up itself in the reaction. In other words, a catalyst provides an alternative pathway with a lower activation energy for the reaction to occur.