Organic Chem. Book: Q 4.30 Activation Energy and temperature

[Lauren Worley 3C]

The question asks if the activation energy of the reaction in 125kJ/mol, will it occur at room temperature.

I understand that that is a high activation energy and that heat needs to be added so that the reaction can occur. What I am unsure of is what value of an activation energy would be low enough to allow a reaction to occur at room temperature? How would we be able to identify this with no additional information?

[Chem_Mod]

There is no specific value at which it will occur at room temperature, because remember spontaneity of reaction is determined by thermodynamics and not kinetics. However, the lower the activation energy, the larger the forward rate constant of the reaction.

[Cindy Chen_2I]

On page 154 of Intro to Organic Chem, they also mentioned in the third to last paragraph that generally reactions with activation energy lower than 80 kJ/mol can occur at room temperature.