What causes electrons to be transferred down the electron-transport chain?
As seen in Table 2, below, and Figure 7a, in these carriers, the species being oxidized or reduced is Fe, which is found either in a iron-sulfur (Fe-S) group or in a heme group. (Recall the heme group from the Chem 151 tutorial “Hemoglobin and the Heme Group: Metal Complexes in the Blood”.) The iron in these groups is alternately oxidized and reduced between Fe(II) (reduced) or Fe(III) (oxidized) states. Table 2 shows that the electrons are transferred through the electron-transport chain because of the difference in the reduction potential of the electron carriers. As explained in the green box below, the higher the electrical potential (e) of a reduction half reaction is, the greater the tendency is for the species to accept an electron. Hence, in the electron-transport chain, electrons are transferred spontaneously from carriers whose reduction results in a small electrical potential change to carriers whose reduction results in an increasingly larger electrical potential change.
Related Questions
- What causes the differences between materials in the triboelectric sequence? How come some materials donate electrons more easily than others?
- Can CIII-Vs be transferred in between the same chain store via the computer system more than 1 time?
- Are electrons transferred from one molecule to another during oxidation reduction reactions?
