medium · MCAT chem-phys
Why are termolecular (three-body) elementary steps extremely rare in reaction mechanisms?
- Termolecular steps would violate the fundamental law of conservation of mass here.
- Termolecular collisions occur only within rigid solid-phase lattices, never gas or solution mechanisms.
- The activation energy needed for any three-molecule encounter is always too high to overcome.
- The probability of three molecules colliding simultaneously with correct orientation is very low.
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