In quite simple terms, can anyone answers this question for me? In my chemistry lesson today we put some aluminium in cold hydrochloric acid, and it just sank; no reactionHowever when we put in warm hydrochloric acid it bubbled, fizzed, jumped around and even over-flowed out of the test tubeSo why did it do it in the warm acid but not the cool one? Thanks, points for the best answer.
Essentially this has everything to do with the activation energyThis is the energy required for the reaction to beginIf you reacted Magnesium with HCL then you would get a vigorous reaction even at a cold temperatureHowever, Aluminium has a higher activation energy and thus needs the extra energy in the form of heat in order to react.
