Oxidation-reduction
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Oxidation
Originally chemists viewed oxidation as a class of chemical reactions in which a chemical species (e.g., atom, ion, molecule, compound) reacts with an oxygen molecule (O2) such that it combines with an atom of oxygen (O) to form an oxygen-containing product, as when hydrogen (H2 reacts with O2 to form the oxygen-containing product, H2O, namely water:
In that reaction, each molecular pair of hydrogen atoms was described as having been 'oxidized' by gaining an oxygen atom, forming a chemical compound referred to as an 'oxide', in this case dihydrogen oxide.
The 'Father of Chemistry', Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), in his Elements of Chemistry (1789), writes of oxidation in relation to the products formed when metals are exposed to air:
The term oxidation, or calcination, is chiefly used to signify the process by which metals exposed to a certain degree of heat are converted to oxides, by absorbing oxygen from the air.[1]
References
- ↑ Lavoisier AL. (1799) Elements of chemistry: in a new systematic order, containing all the modern discoveries, illustrated with thirteen copperplates. Translated by Robert Kerr. 4th edition. | Google Books free full-text.