Question

What are metathesis reactions?

Answer 1

Hint: Metathesis is a type of chemical reaction that basically involves the exchange of atoms or functional groups between two reacting species to form the corresponding product. These types of reactions are also known as double displacement reactions.

Complete answer:
Chemical reactions are the processes that include the creation of new products when two or more substances react at certain conditions. Chemical reactions are an integral part of our lives and define almost every phenomenon occurring around us.
In a chemical reaction, substances that react together through the bond formation to produce new substances are called reactants, and the species formed as a result of the reaction are called products.
There are many different types of chemical reactions and one of the broad types of reactions is metathesis reactions. Metathesis originates from the Greek word meta tithenai which means ‘to transpose or change the position of’.
Thus, metathesis reactions are defined as the reactions involving the transposition of atoms in the reactant species and their rearrangement to form new products. Consider two chemical species, AB and CD, which react to give the products AD and CB.
\[\text{AB}+\text{CD}\to \text{AD}+\text{CB}\]
This is an example of metathesis reactions. It is more commonly known as displacement reaction because one of the species (here B) is displaced by D and products are formed accordingly.
These chemical species can either be ionic or covalent. Metathesis reactions can occur between two inorganic salts as in the following example:
\[\text{AgN}{{\text{O}}_{\text{3}}}\text{ (aq)}+\text{NaCl (aq)}\to \text{AgCl (s)}+\text{NaN}{{\text{O}}_{\text{3}}}\text{ (aq)}\]
Hence, metathesis reactions are those in which interchanging of chemical species occurs.

Note:
An important within organic chemistry, which involves the principle of metathesis is the olefin metathesis reaction. It has significant applications, and it is especially useful due to the relatively small amounts of side products and hazardous waste products.