medium · MCAT chem-phys

Why are termolecular (three-body) elementary steps extremely rare in reaction mechanisms?

  1. Termolecular reactions violate the law of conservation of mass.
  2. Termolecular reactions only occur in the solid phase.
  3. The activation energy for three molecules is always too high to be overcome.
  4. The probability of three molecules colliding simultaneously with correct orientation is very low.

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