Lewis acid
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
In chemistry, a Lewis acid is any acid that can accept a pair of electrons and form a coordinate covalent bond, after the American chemist Gilbert Lewis. The term acid is ambiguous; this is one of the possible interpretations.
An electrophile is a Lewis acid. A Lewis acid usually has an empty LUMO.
Some common Lewis acids include aluminium chloride, iron(III) chloride, boron trifluoride and ytterbium(III) triflate.
Unlike traditional acids a Lewis acid does not require a hydrogen ion as the electrophile; rather, another molecule takes up that role.
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