Skip to main content

Collision Orientation Requirement

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

A collision reacts only if the colliding particles meet in an orientation bringing the atoms that will bond into contact.

Show

Carbon monoxide forms carbon dioxide with oxygen far more readily when its carbon end, not its oxygen end, strikes the oxygen molecule.

Watch for

A collision between the right particles at the right concentration still fails if their geometry is wrong at impact.