Incoprea Theory
Vol. XXXI · 129

Theory 52/Cold slows everything

Cold Can Accelerate

The claim

Some reactions accelerate on cooling when the mechanism switches to a lower-barrier pathway.

01Mechanism

At low temperature, a pathway with small enthalpy but large entropy becomes dominant.

02Prediction

Rate should show a minimum with temperature.

03Refutation

Monotonic Arrhenius behaviour would remove the switch.