Electron acceptor - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Electron_acceptor

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An electron acceptor is a chemical entity that accepts electrons transferred to it from another compound. It is
an oxidizing agent that, by virtue of its accepting electrons, is itself reduced in the process.[1] Electron acceptors
are sometimes mistakenly called electron receptors.

Typical oxidizing agents undergo permanent chemical alteration through covalent or ionic reaction chemistry,
resulting in the complete and irreversible transfer of one or more electrons. In many chemical circumstances,
however, the transfer of electronic charge from an electron donor may be only fractional, meaning an electron is
not completely transferred, but results in an electron resonance between the donor and acceptor. This leads to
the formation of charge transfer complexes in which the components largely retain their chemical identities.

The electron accepting power of an acceptor molecule is measured by its electron affinity which is the energy
released when filling the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO).

The overall energy balance (E), i.e., energy gained or lost, in an electron donor-acceptor transfer is determined
by the difference between the acceptor's electron affinity (A) and the ionization potential (I) of the electron
donor:

In chemistry, a class of electron acceptors that acquire not just one, but a set of two paired electrons that form a
covalent bond with an electron donor molecule, is known as a Lewis acid. This phenomenon gives rise to the
wide field of Lewis acid-base chemistry.[2] The driving forces for electron donor and acceptor behavior in
chemistry is based on the concepts of electropositivity (for donors) and electronegativity (for acceptors) of
atomic or molecular entities.

1 Examples
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Examples of electron acceptors include oxygen, nitrate, iron (III), manganese (IV), sulfate, carbon dioxide, or in
some microorganisms the chlorinated solvents such as tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE),
dichloroethene (DCE), and vinyl chloride (VC). These reactions are of interest not only because they allow
organisms to obtain energy, but also because they are involved in the natural biodegradation of organic
contaminants. When clean-up professionals use monitored natural attenuation to clean up contaminated sites,
biodegradation is one of the major contributing processes.

In biology, a terminal electron acceptor is a compound that receives or accepts an electron during cellular
respiration or photosynthesis. All organisms obtain energy by transferring electrons from an electron donor to an

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Electron acceptor - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_acceptor

electron acceptor. During this process (electron transport chain) the electron acceptor is reduced and the
electron donor is oxidized.

Redox reactions
Semiconductor
Acceptor (semiconductors)

1. http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/electron_acceptor.html
2. Jensen, W.B. (1980). The Lewis acid-base concepts : an overview. New York: Wiley.
ISBN 0-471-03902-0.

Electron acceptor definition at United States Geological Survey website (http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions

/electron_acceptor.html)
Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov/OUST/cat/tumgloss.htm)

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This page was last edited on 22 February 2017, at 21:55.

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