Oxidation-reduction: Difference between revisions
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Lavoisier's work revealed the common link between the air-requiring processes of burning (combustion), rusting and other such so-called calcinations of metals, and breathing (respiration) by animals, namely the requirement for the oxygen component of air and the chemical reaction of oxidation. | Lavoisier's work revealed the common link between the air-requiring processes of burning (combustion), rusting and other such so-called calcinations of metals, and breathing (respiration) by animals, namely the requirement for the oxygen component of air and the chemical reaction of oxidation. | ||
==Subsequent development of the concept of oxidation== | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
<references /> | <references /> | ||
Revision as of 14:59, 15 February 2010
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Originally chemists viewed oxidation as a class of chemical reactions in which a chemical species (e.g., atom, ion, molecule, compound) reacts with an oxygen molecule (O2) such that it combines with an atom of oxygen (O) to form an oxygen-containing product, as when hydrogen (H2) reacts with O2 to form the oxygen-containing product, H2O, namely water:
In that reaction, each molecular pair of hydrogen atoms was described as having been 'oxidized' by gaining an oxygen atom, forming a chemical compound referred to as an 'oxide', in this case dihydrogen oxide.
The 'Father of Chemistry', Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), in his Elements of Chemistry (originally published in French in 1789), writes of oxidation in relation to the products formed when metals (e.g., iron) are exposed to air:
The term oxidation, or calcination, is chiefly used to signify the process by which metals exposed to a certain degree of heat are converted to oxides, by absorbing oxygen from the air.[1]
Lavoisier's work revealed the common link between the air-requiring processes of burning (combustion), rusting and other such so-called calcinations of metals, and breathing (respiration) by animals, namely the requirement for the oxygen component of air and the chemical reaction of oxidation.
Subsequent development of the concept of oxidation
References
- ↑ Lavoisier AL. (1799) Elements of chemistry: in a new systematic order, containing all the modern discoveries, illustrated with thirteen copperplates. Translated by Robert Kerr. 4th edition. | Google Books free full-text.