What Is an Electrophile?

Electrophilic reagent (Electrophile, meaning electronic preferences) refers to a chemical reagent that has electrophilicity in a chemical reaction, and can be represented by E + ^[1] . Electrophilic reagents contain low-energy empty electron orbitals capable of forming new chemical bonds. The electrophile can be neutral or electropositive. The so-called electrophile is an electron pair acceptor, that is, a Lewis acid. During the reaction, it tends to combine with electronegative species, because electrons are electronegative, so "electrophilic" means "electronegative". The corresponding concept is "nucleophile".

Electrophiles refer to atoms or molecules that have an affinity for atoms or molecules containing bondable electron pairs in organic chemical reactions. Electrophilic reagents are generally positively charged reagents or neutral molecules with empty p or d orbitals, capable of accepting electron pairs

Because electrophiles can accept electrons, they are Lewis acids. Most electrophiles are positively charged, with one atom being positively charged or one atom not having an octahedron electron. Electron-neutral electrophiles often have empty orbits and can accept electrons.

Electrophiles attack sites where electrons are concentrated on nucleophiles. The reaction caused by the attack of this electrophile is called

Electrophilic reagents can be divided into three types:

Lewis acid electrophile;

-bond electrophile;

Sigma bond electrophilic reagent.

. Lewis acidic electrophilic compounds contain atoms with less than 8 valence electrons and have empty orbits with low energy, usually P orbitals.

. The electrophilic atom of the -bond electrophile satisfies the octahedral structure, but the -bond misses an atom or functional group that can accept a lone pair of electrons. -bond electrophiles usually contain C = O, C = N, and CN. C = C, CC bond has electrophilicity when it is connected to an atom with electrophilicity.

. Electrophilic compound containing bond, with EX structure. E is an electrophilic atom, which satisfies the octameric structure. Because it is connected to the leaving group X, E is electrophilic.