Reactive intermediate: CARBOCATION Anand S. Burange, Wilson College, Mumbai asgburange@gmail.com The reaction intermediates formed during reaction and reactive intermediates are totally different from each other. Let us consider the example of oxidation of primary alcohols using permanganate or dichromate yields carboxylic acid where aldehyde is an reaction intermediates formed during the reaction and which is isolable and can be detected if we cease/quench the reaction earlier before the over oxidation. Whereas reactive intermediates are highly unstable, have very short life span, mostly non-isolable but they are the part of the reaction mechanism. Till date well known reactive intermediates mainly include carbocation, carbanion, carbene, nitrene, aryne, and radical. Stability of these reactive intermediates governs the rate of the reaction. Carbocation : Carbon is tetravalent (covalency= 04); the species where carbon is trivalent bearing one vacant p orbital is called as c