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What is the mechanism behind the nucleophilic addition reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with a nucleophile? Provide an example of the reaction and identify the product(s) formed.

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The mechanism behind the nucleophilic addition reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with a nucleophile involves the following steps:1. Nucleophilic attack: The nucleophile, which is a species with a lone pair of electrons, attacks the electrophilic carbonyl carbon of the aldehyde or ketone. This results in the formation of a tetrahedral intermediate. The carbonyl carbon's double bond with the oxygen atom is broken, and the oxygen atom becomes negatively charged.2. Protonation: The negatively charged oxygen atom in the tetrahedral intermediate abstracts a proton  H+  from a suitable proton donor  usually a solvent or an acid . This step results in the formation of the final product, which is an alcohol.Example:A simple example of a nucleophilic addition reaction is the reaction between an aldehyde  e.g., acetaldehyde, CH3CHO  and a nucleophile  e.g., a hydride ion, H- . The reaction can be represented as follows:CH3CHO + H-  CH3CH2O-  CH3CH2OHIn this example, the nucleophile  hydride ion  attacks the carbonyl carbon of acetaldehyde, forming a tetrahedral intermediate  CH3CH2O- . This intermediate then abstracts a proton from a suitable proton donor to form the final product, ethanol  CH3CH2OH .

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