How DO Molecules Store Energy? 

criminally underrated channel

I just got my bachelors in chemistry. You have by far the highest quality chemistry-information related content on youtube. Your explanations always amaze me. You seem to have such a deep knowledge in so complex topics.

*Well done young man!* Carbon dioxide is actually able to release energy if you react it with magnesium metal after ignition. 2Mg + CO2 --> 2MgO + C The loosely held electrons in Mg end up back in the carbon atom or rather between carbon atoms. *The energy is stored in the potential for this rearrangement.* MgO is quite stable and it would of course take lots more energy to move the electrons from O= back to the Mg++. *Mg++ and O= are held tightly by ionic bonding* in a lattice.

1:06 "chubby wittle kitty" is a wild choice for this illustration

Excellent very clear and deep. Too many scientific “experts” get a RU-vid following by being contrarian and making scientific arguments against commonly held explanations. But they don’t quite get to the full explanation because they lack the depth of understanding for all the topics they cover. Three twenty six has a deep understanding of its subject and explains it clearly.

Hi Andrew, I am also a chemist here in Brazil, conducting my research using computational chemistry. I’d like to congratulate you on the excellent content you’re creating. Your videos are not only entertaining but also retain the interesting details that make chemistry so fascinating. The presentations are very well balanced (see what I did there?) and are useful even for more experienced chemists. Whenever I watch such quality videos, I am reminded of why I love this field so much. Thank you.

You answer every question that textbooks simply gloss over and don’t even bother to explain it really helps to understand what you’re doing. But I have a question, where does that lost potential energy, that turns into kinetic end up? Who absorbs it? Is it radiated, or converted into heat, or vibrations, etc or does something else happen?

To be honest, I think the part at 17:45 - that students end up so confused by the "paradox" of why carbon dioxide and water release energy as they form their bonds, rather than absorbing it - summarizes why "energy is stored in bonds" is such a misleading shorthand. (And don't get me started about similar energy misconceptions when you don't realize kinetic energy is relative to frame of reference in physics!) But I appreciate the video - even if peoples' confusions are ultimately more about semantics, each non-contradictory viewpoint on the same thing should improve understanding.

Straight to the point, highly informative, well detailed, lovely animations and images for reference, and most importantly no annoying background music that enhance distractions. Thank you sir!

Love love love your presentations. ❤🖤💛💙💜 More more more please.

The last few minutes of this video explain really well why I watch this channel to begin with! We all need accurate models in our head to understand the world. If you're a chemist this is obviously important for your career. I'm just a huge chemistry nerd and getting this kind of detailed and accurate information on the nature of chemistry is just SO entertaining and fun! Thanks for another great video!

He is back with another banger

This channel should be much more popular then it is right now. Some channels are getting lot of subscriber and views with bunch of craps, where channel like these are not getting proper recognition.

Yes. I want to know more about energy and molecules. Somehow I seem to understand your explanations better than those of Veritasium and that Asylum guy and all the others.

In my day, energy was the capacity to do work. Nowadays you need a degree in philosophy to discuss energy

The question of how much energy is stored is only defined relative to some lower floor. With gravity, it is answered by how much the object hasn’t fallen, but still can. It’s stored in its relationship to the floor,not the chair in isolation. So in chemistry, would the stored energy be in the bonds the atoms have not yet made, but could?

The best explanation. Even a physicist need to visit this channel for a deeper explanation because chemistry is really a whole complete branch of science on it's own.

Thank Dr Andrew - I so much disliked basic chemistry as an undergrad. (I think it was the profs and the observation that the near-500 kids in the lecture hall were only there for pre-med, and all of them “collaborated on everything…) I learned much later in my career that electrochemistry is critical to me understanding my engineering stuff.

I really love the dynamic of this video. Also super informative

Your content is exceptionally clear and invaluable! It's so rare to find on RU-vid.

Eugene K also has a really nice video demonstrating how to think about temperature as momentum stored in linear + angular momentum

Great channel. Keep yourself well and please do not stop making videos.

This channel will grow, the topics are interesting and research done on them is deep, great work!

Im fascinated by everything to do with these concepts. The electrons themselves having momentum and the field from which they emerge. Thank you for helping me to visualize these ideas on slightly different scales. Very helpful!

You are a great teacher ❤

awesome video and one of my favorite channels! Thanks, Doc!

I always liked deep understanding of chemistry and your channel is exactly what I need!! ❤

I really like your content, are there any chemistry books/textbooks that explain these concepts exceptionally well?

I love this explanation. That 2700 kJ/mol in decomposing glucose as a single step is enough to blow apart a cell's membranes. But it's done stepwise in little isomer changes and decarboxylation steps.

I'm a high school physics teacher. I am always very gratified to see that my explanations are consistent with what I see here. Thank you!

Great video! I’d love to see one on bond hybridisation.

Awesome video!! Keep up the great work

another great video, thank you for the upload

Thank you Dr. for this and other amazing explanations. I hope that you make a video of how one bond is influenced by whole molecule atoms.

I recently finished chemistry at A level and will be doing it at university, these videos are great to watch.

Andrew, this is such a wonderful channel 👍. I am learning chemistry again with a different perspective at the age of 72. As a teenage medical student in the Seventies learning was about getting through and there was insufficient time to indulge ourselves in deep understanding unfortunately. Having a deep understanding is much more satisfying and now I have more time 😊. Thank you 👍.

Your videos are pretty good compared to the other chemistry related channels. You should do a longer video on material science, more specifically, graphene and carbon lattice structures and their potential properties.

always love your channel. Thanks for sharing you got my subscription and like as always.

Very well explained, cheers 👌

Do please more Videos about it

Please do catalyst design! 🙏

This video is a masterclass in good presentation. And I learned a lot too.

"Why did the molecule break up with the atom? Because it was tired of storing all the energy in the relationship!"

This was a good one 👍 thanks

So - I’m working on an important theory, and I think it reveals a lot about our understanding on the fundamental nature of energy. Like you said and correct me if I’m wrong - the potential energy is from the movement of electrons and the magnetic fields generated in quantum mechanics. Doesn’t that suggest we should move away from our ancient thermodynamic roots and into a new age of energy definition related to the discoveries of electrochemistry? “Heat” no longer applies, and I argue this perspective has insisted that our bodies move directly from the heat energy of the bond breaking - but what if that “heat” is just a side effect of nature. Muscles can’t move without the catalyst ATPace, and the hydrolysis of ATP happens in the catalyst and away from the power stroke - but what if the catalyst was there to rearrange the ADP and P and connect them to specific regions of the myosin, creating the proper electronegative environment to turn the molecular gears and levers from same electromagnetic potential that you said energy came from to begin with. I think it’s the only thing that makes sense, and why calories aren’t a reliable scientific model or theory - because they aren’t proven or actual reality, they are just a metaphor of the fire element that breathes life into life (ancient explanations) Edit: clarity

Very insightful!!

Game Changing Channel 🙌🙌

Nice video. Just wanted to add that every molecule has associated electron energy - this consists of all the the energy of core electrons and valence electrons. In chemical reactions the inner electrons dont change their energy state (or negligibly compared to valence electrons), so one can assume that only the valence electron potential energy plays a role. Now, we can see the total electronic energy as a whole but for us chemists its easier to see it as separate bonds between atoms - there is a mathematical way of converting MO into localized 2-centre bonds which gives same results. What changes during reaction are actually these bonds - they get redistributed, and we all know some bonds have “more energy” than others so if the newly formed bonds (electronic energy of valence electrons) is lower, so excess energy gets released. Now comes the question why are different bonds different in energy - its because in different nuclei rearrangements these electronsare in more stable state than other cases (C=O bond is stronger than O=O bond for example). So if some of this potenital energy is “lost” it is given in the surroundings in the form of work/heat etc. So if You have a molecule with a lot of high energy bonds, if properly triggered, these bonds rearrange in other bonds and excees energy is given off. So in some sense, this energy is stored in the bonds (or valence electrons).

chemically underrated channel

I was wondering for a long time why most elements release energy when a neutral atom gains an *extra* electron (a property called "electron affinity"). How can a neutral atom capture extra electron and keep it? Aren't charges supposed to equilibrate? So I dug down and learned that my simplistic imagination of atoms does not iclude the effect of polarization. I tried hard to imagine how could that work to the point of having it in my dreams - I like the lights up moment when it finally clicks. I was stuck on the idea of electrons orbiting nucleus fixed in space while in reality neither are fixed - even though the nucleus is so much heavier than its electron cloud, it's positive charge can be more or less displaced from the "center" - then I finally grabbed the concept of "dielectric constant" and lot of things started making much more sense... Similarly, I though that electrons are spin-paired as if there was some kind of bond between them - but that's not case! I learned there is even something called "spin pairing energy" and indeed it may take a non-trivial energy to add a second electron to an s-orbital because one have to "flip" its spin in order to coexist in the same orbital (Wolfgang Pauli nodding...). Here is one idea on video: Could you shine a light on bonding in the oxygen molecule? It is the prototypical molecule for explaining the molecular orbital theory and I was reading and re-reading the explanation of why oxygen is a diradical even in ground state (!) but didn't understood how it works (self-learning chemistry is sometimes tough and I get stuck on some topic -- I must say that AI models are a godsend because who has a personal mentor with PhD in chemistry...).

Really well explained!

On energy storage, what about the comparison between single, double, and triple bonds? I remember that nitrogen N2 triple bond can obtained after nitrogen-containing compounds react, sometimes explosively to produce nitrogen gas. Can it be said then the stronger triple bond actually contains less energy?

Very well done. In the future This video will be played in many High School chemistry and physics classrooms.

Có 2 chọn lựa : 1 ) tương phản ánh sáng màu sắc ( cofee and nước )hay nhiệt độ ( muối và nước ) )như (nước và dầu) ( âm thanh và im lặng ) ( electron )

your way of speaking is very awesome

Just a small correction for 14:25 - the box, when it hits the floor, hasn't lost all of its gravitational potential energy, it's only the amount it gained from when it was originally lifted from the floor - it still has all the gravitational potential energy to fall through to the centre of the earth if only the floor wasn't in the way.

Great video!

I've watched all your videos already, so this one felt like revision, but it was fun to watch while screaming "in the potential energy of the bonds!!!!". Yes I want to learn more about chemistry!!!!

Que vídeo incrível!! muito obrigado por proporcionar isso no youtube!! por favor, não pare!! abraços do Brasil.

"is energy stored in bonds" Is like, with your box example, "Is energy stored in the chair"

very interesting content!

Oooo, I really felt the end of this video was begging for a dive into redox potential xD. Oh well, can't cover everything in one vid! This is the first video where I didn't learn anything I think. But I do have a BSc+MSc in molecular life science, specialised in organic (and physical) chemistry. So that I learned something new in all your other videos says enough I think.

Thank you Dr. Andrew Subscribed and following

Energy is a measure of something that either has, or can, happen. Energy isnt a 'thing' - it's a measure - of the changes in states of things relative to other describable quantities of states. Here's what I have in common with an electron: My house doesnt have the potential to tear a wall down and renovate, I do, and I live in my house.

You should do a video on super fluids!

thank you!

This is great and the instructor's graphics and explanations are really superb. I think I am taking in too MUCH energy. Wouldn't it be great if he could come up with a way to help not breaking so many of those bonds so I could loose weight.

Content aside, I give props to the animation and visuals in the video

You look and talk like Werner Ziegler from Better Call Saul. Made this great, great video even better

Outstanding ❤

Amazing video

I would like to draw attention to the end of this video. I am a chemistry major and 100% agree that these theoretical models are there us for to debate and visualize. The reaction mechanisms taught in organic chemistry might not be even true, maybe in reality something much different occurs but we try to explain these as best as we can. I just stumbled upon your channel and hands-down one of the best science channels I have ever seen in a while. Thank you for the clean explanation and your efforts. Subscribed! PS: Did you use Spartan program to do these visualizations?

Thanks!

Learnt more in these videos than 4 yrs high school many yrs ago, BTW noticed the shirt change

Love your videos.

I think the simplest way to explain "where is the energy?" is that energy is the potential to do stuff, and that potential is necessarily relative. The energy of molecules is their capacity to rearrange their atoms into arrangements that have less energy -- less potential to rearrange themselves -- and in doing so, they "release" energy. But that energy, of course, doesn't just disappear: it is transferred into something *else*, which then *gains* the potential to do stuff. That potential can then go on to be transferred further and further, often being converted into "heat," i.e. the movement of other molecules, or it's radiated away, or disperses in other ways, at which point we like to say the energy has been "lost." But it's not lost -- that energy is just not in a form useful to *us*.

Energy is stored all over the atom or molecule. By definition a chemical reaction involves the breaking or forming of a chemical bond. So when you do chemistry on a compound and energy is released or absorbed , that energy came from the change in configuration(3d shape of the chemical species) , and that physical change in shape came mostly from the areas associated with the bonds. There is also energy exchange from configuration changes on a single molecule or atom that has been exited by radiation. So most of the energy on the atoms or molecules is stored on its electronic configuration. It is when you change the configuration of the electronic clouds that most of the chemistry happens. ls it also very important to understand the concept of "work'. Work is usable energy. Usable energy is what we can actually measure or use.

10:52 “He rightly says that making chemical bonds from _atoms_ results in a loss of potential energy.”

Waiting for next video

Thanks

Just watched a video by Cody’s Lab of him casting iron he smelted from Magnetite (Iron Oxide) and Aluminium using the Thermite reaction. Might be interesting to do a dive into the energetics of that, somewhat exothermic, reaction!

Please make video on catalyst design

thank you for providing this high value content, that is well above some other elf-serving science-fluencers stuff ;)

Hi Andrew, I have read and studied a whole bunch of books talking about hilbert, schrodinger, and quantum physics, and that is all fine... but I have not seen a real object in any of those books. It's like studying planet motion and just looking at the equations, having no idea about the real orbits. So my question is, Where can I find videos or experimental data where I can see that the solution of the schrodinger equation is actually describing what I see in the data? Like if I superpose the calculation over the data, I see both are the same. I don't talk about isolated ideal atoms, I am interested in the simplest possible chemical reactions. Any hints about that?

🎉🎉 "Think of molecules as tiny, over-caffeinated squirrels. They store energy like squirrels hoarding nuts. When they get excited (like after too much coffee), they release that energy in bursts, causing all sorts of reactions. So, molecules storing energy is basically nature's way of keeping these little squirrels busy until they need to unleash their energetic chaos!"

Did the box falling in the example really lose energy? I thought it would have a normal force equal to gravity acting on it (chair) which sums to zero, so not lost but balanced. Great explanation thanks!

Yes: more please. Nice job with tough content. Thank you. I’ll consume as much of this as you care to produce. 👍 I’ll jump topics now. (Forgive my lack of transitions…) I’m trying to grasp why we can’t reproduce and experiment with components on the scale of, say, 10 to 20 nanometers. I realize that’s a stupid question but I’d love the stupid answer if you get bored sometime. Obviously “it’s too small” is both accurate and too simple… I understand that we have a pretty good idea of how to model ATP synthase within photosynthesis. But I understand we have a long way to go to understand nitrogenase at the same level of detail…? (So I’m asking why we’re struggling so much…?) My ignorance comes in part from thinking that we can study subatomic particles in an accelerator, so why can’t we do molecules? This is not a fair comparison, of course. But still it’s frustrating to me that I can’t just open a book and get the answer. Am I just looking in the wrong books, or is there really a gap in our knowledge about how protein chains “hold” a molecule of phosphate in order to push it into the end of an ADP? To ask the same question another way, why can’t we build an ADP synthase unit in a lab, mount it in a lipid, and then feed it phosphate molecules to assemble? What do we need to invent? Interestingly, right after I posted this note, RU-vid gave me a video that referred to the cloud chamber everybody was using in the 1910s and 1920s to bombard everything with x rays! Okay, I knew about the cloud chamber but I am assuming that’s not good enough to use with whole molecules… Is that right? What kind of cloud chamber do we need? Also, the invention of the cloud chamber was good for a Nobel, but as I understand it, the tool was meant for studying weather phenomena, and it was an accident that it showed what it showed. I saw this in a James Burke BBC series called, “Connections.” What instrument do we need in order to “see” proteins in operation? Please tell me we have the tool and we’re not waiting for another accident on Ben Nevis?!

Keep it up gentleman 👏 👍

The functional groups doing chemical reactions is the source of redox energy

I think....I love this channel

Love you man

So it's technically stored in the bonds, but it's actually negative potential energy compared to the unbonded state. Seems to go a bit against the spirit of energy storage location attribution.

The whole Derek Muller video was, I'm sure, to sell more snatoms. It's all about making money. I prefer 326 and science asylum. They have actual degrees in science, not science communication. Makes a difference.

When you break a thing, the bonds of some molecules are broken. It may be covalent bonds. You are unable to reverse the process and join them. Bonds are not created again. But, why? Energy required is large amount?

Is it best analogy to used rubberband when you held the two end of it stretch and then you used scissor to cut it in the middle the store energy will release and slap your hand

I genuinely did not know that chemical energy was literally kinetic energy. I always thought that was a metaphor but no. It's literally the movement of particles. Wild

More ENERGY please ❤

The suggestions of AI seem like bait to test critical thinking. 180g of glucose (sugar) is 4 kcal per gram which multiplies to 720 kcal and it’s usually (1 mile/100kcal) so it would only be enough for about 1/4 mile Love this channel ❤❤❤

‘Cant see the difference?’ Me: Are they even similar? 6:22

Energy itself is an abstract concept.