I’ve asked this question to multiple teachers and googled it multiple times only to hear “yeah if you put a catalyst in a chemical it reacts faster” but I want to know what the catalyst actually does to do this
In: Chemistry
Often mentioned here but unfortunately not quite right: the catalyst doesn’t reduce the activation energy.
Image you are in a valley and want to commute to a nearby valley. To do that you have to climb the mountain first and then you can descend to your destination.
Now image you see another way to get to the same destination but along another way. This way may be a little bit long because you climb a different mountain, but this mountain is way way smaller.
That’s what the catalyst does: it opens a different way for the reaction to go along.
In this picture the height of the mountain stands for the activation energy. You must overcome it to progress to your products.
And now you can also see where the confusion about lowering the activation energy comes from: if you have a look from outside it *seems* as the activation energy is lower. But in reality the reaction process along a complete different reaction path.
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