Free electrons questions.

Hello!

1- How can i know if after a certain chemical reaction, an molecule will have free electrons?

2- What is needed to a molecule to have free electrons after an chemical reactions?

Thank you!

Reply 1

goose183

1

Original post by amanda.castro

Hello!

1- How can i know if after a certain chemical reaction, an molecule will have free electrons?

2- What is needed to a molecule to have free electrons after an chemical reactions?

Thank you!

By "free electrons" do you mean radicals? If so, the big clues in exam questions are conditions and reactants that like to undergo homolytic cleavage. For example, anything involving AIBN, Na/NH₃, Bu₃SnH, weak O-O single bonds and UV light. If you see any of these, it is a good bet that the reaction will proceed via a radical mechanism.

Reply 2

amanda.castro

OP

2

Original post by goose183

By "free electrons" do you mean radicals? If so, the big clues in exam questions are conditions and reactants that like to undergo homolytic cleavage. For example, anything involving AIBN, Na/NH₃, Bu₃SnH, weak O-O single bonds and UV light. If you see any of these, it is a good bet that the reaction will proceed via a radical mechanism.

Actually i don't know if i'm using the right term. When i say free electrons i want to refer to electrons who does electric current. Those who are more common in metallic elements. In my country we use "free electrons" to refer to electrons weakly bonded to electrosphere, more common in metallic elements.

undergo homolytic cleavage

Could you, please explain to me this?

AIBN

What? What does this means? I'm not american so this acronym may be different to me.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

goose183

1

Ah right sorry, I was thinking you meant something different. A good area for you to research would be conduction bands, and band gaps. This explains the difference between conductors, insulators and semiconductors. It is to do with the band gap between valence electrons and conductive electrons. Insulators do not conduct electricity because there is a large band gap, and too much energy is required to move electrons from the valence band to the conduction band. All good chemistry text books will be able to explain this better than me. This wiki article seems to give you somewhere to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduction_band

Hope this gives you a start on what you are looking for :smile:

Also:

What I mean by homolytic fission: most reactions involve the movement of a pair of electrons, but homolytic reactions involve movement of only 1 electron. Also known as radical reactions.

AIBN is Azobisisobutyronitrile. It is a commonly used radical initiator.

Reply 4

username913907

10

Original post by amanda.castro

Actually i don't know if i'm using the right term. When i say free electrons i want to refer to electrons who does electric current. Those who are more common in metallic elements. In my country we use "free electrons" to refer to electrons weakly bonded to electrosphere, more common in metallic elements.

Could you, please explain to me this?

What? What does this means? I'm not american so this acronym may be different to me.

Are you actually and undergrad? It's marked as such. This seems an odd question for someone studying a chem degree

Free electrons questions.

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