Energy bond reorganization

As demonstrated in Section 2.2, the energy of activation of simple electron transfer reactions is determined by the energy of reorganization of the solvent, which is typically about 0.5-1 eV. Thus, these reactions are typically much faster than bondbreaking reactions, and do not require catalysis by a J-band. However, before considering the catalysis of bond breaking in detail, it is instructive to apply the ideas of the preceding section to simple electron transfer, and see what effects the abandomnent of the wide band approximation has. 

Generally, the formation of hydrogen-bonded complexes is regarded as a very fast, diffusion-controlled process with no energy barrier. On the other hand, even ultrafast molecular reorientations in solution require energy for reorganization of... 

There are considerable difficulties in demonstrating dominant control by any one of the steps in Table 18.1. and in establishing the factors which determine the magnitude of the activation energy, E. The principal bond-reorganization step may be influenced by a variety of factors, including the following. 

Inspection of the two last schemes shows, in fact, that chemical reactions involve bond reorganization old bonds are broken and replaced with new ones. This is the reason why almost all chemical reactions have energy barriers that separate the... 

---