What is an electrophile?

1 Answer
anor277
Mar 28, 2018

An #"electrophile"# is literally an #"electron lover..."#

Explanation:

And especially in organic chemistry, we conceive of reactivity as the interaction of #"electrophiles"#, electron-deficient species, with #"nucleophiles"#, electron-rich species, i.e. those that are formally anionic, or which bear a lone pair of electrons.

And given the definition, we could identify as #"electrophiles"# protons, #H^+#, the ipso-carbon in #R-stackrel(""^+delta)CH_2X#, or the carbon centre in #Rstackrel(""^+delta)C(=O)R'#, or #stackrel(""^+delta)CO_2#....

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