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Definition
Oxidation can be defined with different terms such as: the loss of electrons or hydrogen, or the gain of oxygen by an atom or a molecule.
Overview
Oxidation in Terms of Electron Transfer
Oxidation is the loss of electrons.
For example, in the reaction between iron and copper sulfate solution
copper sulfate and iron sulfate are both ionic compounds. If rewritten as an ionic equation, it turns out that sulfate ions are spectator ions and the reaction can be written as:
where the iron is oxidized from metal iron (Feo) to ferrous iron (Fe2+) by the loss of two electrons:
while the copper (II) ion, gaining two electrons is reduced to copper metal (Cuo). Thus, in the reaction, the reductant or reducing...
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References and Further Reading
Encyclopedia Britannica (1992) Macropedia, vol 15, pp 1059. Micropedia, vol 9, pp 31, 15th edn. ISBN 0-85229-553-7
Gold V (1997) In: McNaught AD, Wilkinson A (eds) The compendium of chemical terminology published by the international union of pure and applied chemistry (IUPAC), 2nd edn. ISBN 0-86542-684-8
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch9/redox.php
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/redox/definitions.html#top
Hudlický M (1990) Oxidations in organic chemistry. American Chemical Society, Washington, p 456. ISBN 0-8412-1789-7
Schüring J, Schulz HD, Fischer WR, Böttcher J, Duijnisveld WH (eds) (1999) Redox: fundamentals, processes and applications. Springer, Heidelberg, p 246. ISBN 978-3540665281
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Alonso, C. (2014). Oxidation. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_1135-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_1135-2
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