What is the difference between a free radical and a radical cation? Are they different thing or do they mean same?
Asked
Active
Viewed 3,228 times
5
-
The difference is one electron ;-) – Klaus-Dieter Warzecha Jan 09 '17 at 18:24
-
@KlausWarzecha Not always: radical dications...? – hBy2Py Jan 09 '17 at 18:26
-
Related: The answer to http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/9579 gives one example for the generation of a radical cation and how it is converted to a radical. – Klaus-Dieter Warzecha Jan 09 '17 at 18:41
1 Answers
6
A radical cation is simply a free radical with a positive charge. Similarly a radical anion is a free radical with a negative charge.
In other words, radical cations and radical anions are subsets of the free radicals.
That said, the term free radical itself is not entirely clear cut, as illustrated in this question.
