Chemical energy facts for kids

Chemical energy is the energy of chemical substances that is released when the substances undergo a chemical reaction and transform into other substances. Some examples of storage media of chemical energy include batteries, food, and gasoline (as well as oxygen gas, which is of high chemical energy due to its relatively weak double bond and indispensable for chemical-energy release in gasoline combustion). Breaking and re-making chemical bonds involves energy, which may be either absorbed by or evolved from a chemical system. If reactants with relatively weak electron-pair bonds convert to more strongly bonded products, energy is released. Therefore, relatively weakly bonded and unstable molecules store chemical energy.

Examples:

• When food is oxidized to carbon dioxide and water, the energy is released.
• When a fuel is burned, the chemical energy of molecular oxygen and the fuel is converted to heat.
• Green plants transform solar energy to chemical energy (mostly of oxygen) through the process of photosynthesis.
• Electrical energy can be converted to chemical energy and vice versa through electrochemical reactions.

See also

In Spanish: Energía química para niños