Why High Molecularity Reactions are Rare ?

Most of the reactions involve one, two or at the most three molecules. The reactions involving four or more molecules are very rare. The rarity of reactions with high molecularity can be explained on the basis of the kinetic molecular theory. According to this theory, the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the number of collisions taking place between the reacting molecules. The chances of simultaneous collision of reacting molecules will go on decreasing with increase in number of molecules.

Thus the possibility of three molecules colliding together is much less than in case of bimolecular collision. For a reaction of molecularity 4, the four molecules must come closed and collide with one another at the same time. The possibility of their doing so is much less than even in the case of termolecular reaction. Hence the reactions involving many molecules proceed through a series of steps, each involving two or three or less number of molecules. Such a reaction is called a complex reaction and the slowest step determines the overall rate of the reactions.