[gebbissimo]

Hi everybody,

I'm reviewing the basic principles of Nucleophiles/Electrophiles and Reducing/Oxidizing Agents.

(1) Nucleophiles form chemical bonds by donating two bonding electrons
(2) Reducing Agents donate electron(s) in a redox reaction


So, are all Nucleophiles reducing agents or partially or do they "act" as Reducing Agents? I cannot clearly see how the two concepts are connected.

Thank you very much upfront!

[DevaDevil]

as far as I seem to remember from my uni times, the main difference is that nucleophiles/electrophiles is commonly used to describe electronic effects in covalent bonding (where the resulting compound has no formal charge separation, such as OH^- addition in a hydrocarbon, leading to an C-OH bond), whereas oxidising/reducing agents is mainly used with ionic bonds (formal reductions/oxidations, such as iron rusting 3Fe + 2O₂ --> Fe₂O₃, where the oxidation state of iron is changed from 0 to 3+)

(I am by far more experienced with the latter)