Organic Chemistry

Reaction is made up of reactants and products. Reactant is made up of substrate and reagent. A substrate is chemical species which reacts with a reagent to generate a product. A reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction.

To understand electrophile and nucleophile, first we need to understand what is meant by "phile". "Phile" litterally means loving.

Therefore electrophile means electron loving or electron deficient molecules while nucleophile means nucleus loving or electron rich molecules. Electrophile molecules are all positively charged while nucleophile are all negatively charged.

Example: NO₂⁺ is an electrophile while CN^- is a nucleophile.