In chemistry, a reactive intermediate or an intermediate is a short-lived, high-energy, highly reactive molecule. When generated in a chemical reaction, it will quickly convert into a more stable molecule. Only in exceptional cases can these compounds be isolated and stored, e.g. low temperatures, matrix isolation. When their existence is indicated, reactive intermediates can help explain how a chemical reaction takes place. Most chemical reactions take more than one elementary step to complete, and a reactive intermediate is a high-energy, yet stable, product that exists only in one of the intermediate steps. The series of steps together make a reaction mechanism. A reactive intermediate differs from a reactant or product or a simple reaction intermediate only in that it cannot usually be isolated but is sometimes observable only through fast spectroscopic methods. It is stable in the sense that an elementary reaction forms the reactive intermediate and the elementary reaction in the next step is needed to destroy it. When a reactive intermediate is not observable, its existence must be inferred through experimentation. This usually involves changing reaction conditions such as temperature or concentration and applying the techniques of chemical kinetics, chemical thermodynamics, or spectroscopy. Reactive intermediates based on carbon are radicals, carbenes, carbocations, carbanions, arynes, and carbynes. Reactive intermediates have several features in common: low concentration with respect to reaction substrate and final reaction product with the exception of carbanions, these intermediates do not obey the lewis octet rule, hence the high reactivity often generated on chemical decomposition of a chemical compound it is often possible to prove the existence of this species by spectroscopic means cage effects have to be taken into account often stabilisation by conjugation or resonance often difficult to distinguish from a transition state prove existence by means of chemical trapping File:Radical metilo--methyl radical.

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Carbene
In organic chemistry, a carbene is a molecule containing a neutral carbon atom with a valence of two and two unshared valence electrons. The general formula is or where the R represents substituents or hydrogen atoms. The term "carbene" may also refer to the specific compound , also called methylene, the parent hydride from which all other carbene compounds are formally derived. Carbenes are classified as either singlets or triplets, depending upon their electronic structure.
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In chemistry, a reaction intermediate or an intermediate is a molecular entity that is formed from the reactants (or preceding intermediates) but is consumed in further reactions in stepwise chemical reactions that contain multiple elementary steps. Intermediates are the reaction product of one elementary step, but do not appear in the chemical equation for an overall chemical equation. For example, consider this hypothetical stepwise reaction: A + B -> C + D The reaction includes two elementary steps: A + B -> X X -> C + D In this example, X is a reaction intermediate.
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In organic chemistry, an allyl group is a substituent with the structural formula . It consists of a methylene bridge () attached to a vinyl group (). The name is derived from the scientific name for garlic, Allium sativum. In 1844, Theodor Wertheim isolated an allyl derivative from garlic oil and named it "Schwefelallyl". The term allyl applies to many compounds related to , some of which are of practical or of everyday importance, for example, allyl chloride. Allylation is any chemical reaction that adds an allyl group to a substrate.
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