Final answer:
Kinetic combustion mechanisms indeed operate within specific temperature ranges and require higher temperatures to overcome activation energy barriers, leading to an acceleration in reaction rates. Your observations align with the established correlation between temperature and chemical kinetics, suggesting that you are likely not making an error in your tests.
Step-by-step explanation:
Yes, kinetic combustion mechanisms typically operate within specific temperature ranges, and the behavior you've observed in your tests aligns with standard chemical kinetics understanding. At lower temperatures, the molecules involved in the reaction have lower kinetic energy and fewer of them possess the energy necessary to surpass the activation energy barrier for the reaction to proceed. As temperature increases, more molecules attain or exceed the activation energy required, leading to a higher frequency of effective collisions and an increase in the reaction rate.
This phenomenon explains why most chemical reactions, including combustion, have higher rates at elevated temperatures. For example, kinetic findings suggest that doubling the reaction rate might occur with just a 10°C increase in temperature, despite this resulting in a relatively modest increase in kinetic energy of the particles. Specifically, in combustion reactions, the effect of temperature is crucial because these reactions often have high activation energies, so the reaction rate may be negligible at low temperatures and only becomes significant as the temperature rises above a certain threshold (like 1000 K in your observations).