Past exam of the chemistry course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2023 / Paper 1 / 5 / a / ii / Solution

The Arrhenius equation isThe exponential gives the strongly temperature-dependent energetic factor. For a simple bimolecular collision picture, $A$ collects the encounter frequency per reactant concentration and the fraction of encounters with a suitable orientation and other dynamical requirements. Thus a collision is not automatically a successful reaction even when its energy is sufficient.

$A$ has the same units as $k$, which depend on the rate law; it is not always a frequency in ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. More generally it is an effective prefactor containing statistical and dynamical contributions rather than a literal universal collision count. Treating it as temperature independent is the approximation requested here.