Oxidation, reduction and redox reactions.

REDOX REACTIONS:

Redox, consists of two parts RED + OX, the RED part stands for reduction, whilst the OX part stands for oxidation which occur simultaneously within a redox reaction. 

In terms of electrons, these can be defined as: 

Oxidation: A loss in electrons from a species

Reduction: A gain in electrons in a species

and can be remebered by: 

During a reaction, different species are responsible for the oxidation and reduction on other species. These are called oxidation and reduction agents and can be defined as: 

Oxidation agents: A species which accepts electrons from another species (electron accepters).These are reduced themselves.  

Reduction agents: A species which donates electrons from another species (electron donors). These are oxidised themselves. 

These can be identified by looking at the oxidation states of the species: 

Oxidation state: The number of electrons lost or gained by an atom in a compound which is given as a charge. 

RULES…