Talk:Redox

Needs etymological explanation

Would someone please add a section clarifying the usage "oxidation" (which obviously does not mean "adding oxygen") and "reduction" (what exactly is reduced?). Thanks. Tmangray 00:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely, in its current form this article is quite obfuscatory rather than explanatory, and well below Wikipedia's normal level of clarity. Please could someone rewrite it with the end user in mind. Thanks :)

Er, the following statements from the introductory section:

• Oxidation describes the loss of electrons by a molecule, atom or ion
• Reduction describes the gain of electrons by a molecule, atom or ion

seem quite clear and unobfuscated as a description of these terms. And a bit later in that section, we get a more proper definition:

Thus, oxidation is better defined as an increase in oxidation number, and reduction as a decrease in oxidation number.

Are those close to being clear, and a small wording-change could fix the whole problem? Or are those hopelessly confusing and we need to start over? DMacks 16:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still a litte confused, it seems like the simple definition and the detailed definition contradicts themselves? More incisively speaking, the simple definition states (in a nut shell) that oxidation is the loss of electrons and that redution is the gain of electrons...While the detailed description basically states the opposite of the two in that oxidation is to gain as reduction is to loss (which in turn contradicts the simple definition)...Am I making any sence? -Thanks Gunnar Berlin 21:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ahah! Remember that the electrons, the "things" that are being gained or lost, are negatively charged. So gaining negatively-charged things causes a lower charge. More electrons == lower oxidation state. DMacks 21:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you that definatly clears it up for me now--Gunnar Berlin 21:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No wonder chemistry is such a difficult subject. Only a chemist would ever call a gain of something a "reduction". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain Quirk (talk • contribs) 09:52, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Really? A gain in my capital corresponds to a reduction of my debt. Electron charge is negative as is debt, so in both cases we have to pay attention to the sign. Dirac66 (talk) 21:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the article should explain it, but reduction comes from reducing metal oxides to metal with carbon.

Oxidation is often done with oxygen, but not exclusively. Gah4 (talk) 02:49, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Much of the naming goes back way before things were properly understood. But oxygen, either elemental or from oxides, is the primary oxidizer. The name comes from acid former as the early acids were oxides of non-metals. It took some time for chemists to understand that hydrochloric acid is not an oxide. Smelting reduces ores, often oxides, to metal often using carbon. Since the metal weighs less than the source ore, reduction made some sense. Later, chemists used the terms to apply to other reactions where the terms make less sense. Gah4 (talk) 01:01, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm wondering if someone could add a link to explain the word "substrate", as in "An atom transfers from one substrate to another". Does this just mean "associates" or is there a physical action? Kbk (talk) 23:24, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I have now added a link to Substrate (chemistry). This is not completely satisfactory because that article contains several different meanings of "substrate", but it is a start. Dirac66 (talk) 01:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Merge

Oxidation should be merged into this article!!! Reduction (chemistry) redirects to Oxidation. See Talk:Oxidation#Merge?.

210.50.105.135 12:17, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oxidation has been merged into this article.

Brianjd 06:43, 2004 Nov 7 (UTC)

Muddled basics

In the intro: "The oxidation and reduction processes occur simultaneously in the chemical reaction."

1. Does the word "process" imply that something is going on beyond loss or gain of electron? Is this sentence equivalent to "Oxidation and Reduction occur simultaneously"?

2. Is this sentence adding some fact, or is it merely restating the obvious that one atom gains the electron that the other atom lost?

Then later under "Terminology" we have: "In electrochemical reactions the oxidation and reduction processes do occur simultaneously but are separated in space."

This implies that the electron moves from the donor to acceptor at faster than the speed of light. Shouldn't that be impossible?

Gwideman (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Missing the other definition of oxidization

Oxidation also refers to the addition of an oxygen atom to the chemical. Where's the wiki article on that? CheckNineEight (talk) 12:45, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

It's somewhat mentioned in the §Oxidants and other sections. But oxygenation (gain of oxygen) is not the same as oxidation. Oxygenation can have several meanings itself, not just the redox oxidation sense. The only time I've ever seen gain-of-oxygen used in a redox-reaction context is things like "gain of oxygen atoms is one type of oxidation reaction", and even then only in contexts where the speaker is not generally being precise with definitions (or limiting their discussion to only that subset of reactions). That's far from "oxidation is defined as the gain of oxygen atoms". DMacks (talk) 13:01, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not even talking about redox here, just the chemical reaction involving the addition of an oxygen atom. As in, oxidation deriving from the word oxide – the same way amination derives from amine, or methylation from methyl.

Speaking of oxygenation, that's not even an article here either, just a disambiguation page – and it doesn't even mention a "gain of oxygen" definition or article with that particular chemical reaction.

I was looking for the term equivalent to "amination" or "methylation" – but with an oxo group, rather than an amine or methyl group, respectively. Formylation specifically refers to a formyl group being added, so that's not what I'm looking for. CheckNineEight (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2026 (UTC)