Flexi Says: Supplying reactant particles with energy causes the bonds between the atoms to vibrate with a greater frequency. This increase in vibrational energy makes a chemical bond more likely to break and a chemical reaction more likely to occur when those particles collide with other particles. The activation energy for a reaction is the minimum energy that colliding particles must have in order to undergo a reaction. Some reactions occur readily at room temperature because the reacting particles already have the requisite activation energy at that temperature. Other reactions only occur when heated because the particles do not have enough energy unless an external source of heat provides the particles with more kinetic energy.
