Question #ff599
1 Answer
I am not sure what exactly you mean by an electrophile reaction. In organic chemistry many reactions include electrophiles, including electrophilic addition reactions, and electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions.
An electrophile is a molecule or ion that is electron deficient. Electrophiles react with nucleophiles, molecules or ions that are electron rich.
For example, in the electrophilic addition of HCl to an alkene, the electrophile is HCl, and because of the polarity of HCl, the H is the most electron deficient part of the molecule. Watch this video to understand why the H-atom of HCl is the most electrophilic part of the molecule.
The pi-bond of alkenes are electron rich, so there is negative charge. This part of the molecule reacts with the H part of HCl.
The mechanism below depicts how this reaction happens
The bottom line is electrophiles are "eletron loving" (electron deficient, and react with nucleophiles "nucleus loving" (electron rich).
