Oxidation-Reduction | Introduction
Introduction
Do you know what rusting metal, photographic processes, battery operation, and clothes bleaching have in common? They are all examples of an important and common kind of chemical reaction called an oxidation-reduction reactionA chemical reaction in which one substance loses one or more electrons and the other sub-stance gains one or more electrons.. This kind of reaction involves the transfer of electronsA subatomic particle with a mass of about one atomic mass unit and a single negative electrical charge that orbits the nucleus of an atom., which are tiny particles in atomsThe smallest unit of an element, made up of protons and neutrons in a central nucleus surrounded by moving electrons.. During oxidationA chemical reaction in which oxygen reacts with some other substance and in which ions, atoms, or molecules lose electrons., a substance's atoms lose electrons. During reductionA process in which a chemical substance gives off oxygen or takes on electrons., a substance's atoms gain electrons.