Chemical mechanisms in biochemical reactions

A chemical reaction is a process by which the bonds in the atoms of substances are rearranged to generate new substances. Matter cannot be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction—the same type and number of atoms that make up the reactants are still present in the products. Merely, the rearrangement of chemical bonds produces new compounds.
Chemical Reactions Rearrange Atoms into New Substances
A chemical reaction takes starting materials—the reactants—and changes them...

A balanced chemical equation provides the information of chemical formulas of the reactants and products involved in the chemical change. A reaction’s stoichiometry helps predict how much of the reactant is needed to produce the desired amount of product, or in some cases, how much product will be formed from a specific amount of the reactant.
The relative amounts of reactants and products represented in a balanced chemical equation are often referred to as stoichiometric amounts. However, in...

Chemical substances interact in many different ways. Certain chemical reactions exhibit common patterns of reactivity. Due to the vast number of chemical reactions, it becomes necessary to classify them based on the observed patterns of interaction.

All chemical reactions begin with a reactant, the general term for one or more substances entering the reaction. Sodium and chloride ions, for example, are the reactants in the production of table salt. One or more substances produced by a chemical reaction are called the product. Chemical reactions follow the law of conservation of mass, which means that matter cannot be created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. The components of the reactants—the number of atoms and the...

The kinetic studies of SN2 reactions suggest an essential feature of its mechanism: it is a single-step process without intermediates. Here, both the nucleophile and the substrate participate in the rate-determining step.
The presence of the more electronegative halogen in the substrate creates a polarized carbon-halide bond. The halide pulls the electron cloud generating an electrophilic center at the carbon atom. Thus, the carbon atom carries a partial positive charge while the halide has a...