Question

What are nucleophiles and electrophiles and how do they interact?

Answer 1

A `"nucleophile"` is an electron pair donor......

Explanation:

And an electrophile is an electron pair acceptor. And to illustrate this we could consider the formation of ethyl alcohol from sodium hydroxide and ethyl bromide.

The electrophile, the ipso carbon, is DENUDED of electron density given the electronegativity of the bromine atom....

`H_3Cstackrel(delta^+)CH_2stackrel(delta^-)Br+K^(+)""^(-)OHrarr"H"_3"CCH"_2"OH" + "KBr"darr`

THe hydroxide anion, the NUCLEOPHILE is attracted to this region of electropositivity, and formation of an insoluble salt, `KBr`, provides a thermodynamic driving force to the reaction.