What is an intermediate? Chemically speaking...?

Question

or more specefically, the intermediate used to produce phosphoric acid how to collect or produce this intermediate.

i do not know what an intermediate is, thank in advance:)

Answer 1

An intermediate is a chemical that is necessarily formed and then converted to other substances during the process of a chemical reaction. An intermediate does exist during the process of the reaction but does not appear as a product.

For instance, the addition reaction of bromine to ethene to form 1,2-dibromoethane. The mechanism is that:

CH2=CH2 + Br2 → C(+)H2CH2Br + Br(-) → BrCH2CH2Br.

In this case, the carbonium cation C(+)H2CH2Br is an intermediate but since such intermediate is of exceedingly high reactivity, it will never exist as a product.

To realise and understand the existence of intermediates is important in chemistry, especially organic chemistry. It gives you a clear flow of the process of reaction as well as understand why some products will not come out in a specific reaction.