Question #e8574

1 Answer
Apr 12, 2017

When a phosphate breaks off

Explanation:

https://burningscience.wordpress.com/atp-adenosine-triphosphate/

The phosphate groups are very tightly packed, and their bonds contain a lot of energy. An analogy that I heard was: Consider three kids who really hate each other, forced to sit together on a school bus. As soon as one of them moves, a lot of the tension is gone.

The same idea can be applied to the phosphate groups.