[Procrastinate]

I am trying to understand the mechanism of the reduction of benzophenone to diphenylmethanol. In the last part of the mechanism, hydrogen atoms are added (an acidic solution) and replaces the boron thus resulting in diphenylmethanol. I was just wondering what type of reaction this is. Is it a nucleophilic reaction or an electrophilic reaction? I think it is definitely a substitution reaction but I never understood the difference between electrophilic and nucleophilic...

Part of the reaction is shown below.

[jp92celtic]

I never understood the difference between electrophilic and nucleophilic...

quick reference: "-phil" comes from the greek word for love/like (phil-anthropy, love of people....etc)

electrophilic atoms are electron-poor: that is to say that they want electrons (they "love" electrons)
nucleophilic atoms are electron-rich: they are attracted to nuclei

reactions and arrow-pushing mechanism always go from nucleophiles  electrophiles

hope that helps somewhat, the image is rather hard to understand...