How do hydrogen and oxygen react to create water?
Just combining hydrogen gas and oxygen gas at room temperature won’t be enough to cause a reaction. You will simply have a mixture of the two gases. What is required is some “activation energy”.which is supplied from a spark, match, etc. The bond holding H2 together is weaker than for O2, and the most likely initiating reaction is the dissociation of H2 into two hydrogen atoms. An H atom reacts with O2 as shown in the reaction mechanism below: 2H2 –> 4H H + O2 –> OH + O O + H –> OH 2H + 2OH –> 2HOH When combined, and the intermediates cancel out, the reaction mechanism will produce 2H2 + O2 –> 2H2O Notice that H and OH are not ions. They have no net charge. They are free radicals. A free radical is a reactive species with an odd number of electrons, one of which is unpaired. This makes them very reactive.
