Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Cellular respiration is the process by which organisms utilize oxygen to break down food molecules to get chemical energy for cell functions. Cellular respiration takes place in the cells of animals, plants, and fungi, and also in algae and other protists. It is often called aerobic respiration because the process requires oxygen (the root aer comes from the Greek give-and-take for "air"). In the absence of oxygen, cells tin get energy by breaking down food through the procedure of fermentation, or anaerobic respiration. Of the two processes, cellular respiration is more efficient, yielding considerably more free energy than that released through fermentation.

Cellular respiration is a chemical reaction in which glucose is broken downwardly in the presence of oxygen, releasing chemical energy and producing carbon dioxide and water equally waste products:

glucose + oxygen → chemical energy + carbon dioxide + water

The energy released is captured in molecules of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which then supply it to fuel other cellular processes (run across biochemistry).

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

All cells demand energy to function. Just as a car must fire fuel to get the energy it needs to run, the cell must burn fuel—for case, nutrient—to become free energy to deport out the tasks of life. Glucose, a simple carbohydrate, provides the fuel the cell needs. Although energy is also stored in larger molecules, such as complex carbohydrates and fats, they must exist broken downwardly into molecules of glucose before the cell can use their free energy.

Near of cellular respiration takes place in sausage-shaped organelles called mitochondria. Although mitochondria play a key role in other cellular processes, their main function is to produce large amounts of free energy through cellular respiration. The number of mitochondria per jail cell varies; liver and muscle cells, which crave big amounts of energy to function, may take thousands. (Come across also jail cell.)

Cellular respiration begins in the cell'due south cytoplasm. There, glucose is cleaved down through a serial of chemic reactions to produce small molecules of a substance called pyruvate. This part of the process is chosen glycolysis; it does not require oxygen and releases a small-scale corporeality of energy, which is captured by a few ATPs. The pyruvate molecules then enter the mitochondria, where they undergo a series of chemical reactions with oxygen. So much energy is released in these reactions that it takes many molecules of ATP to capture it all. The reactions also release hydrogen, which combines with oxygen to produce water; and carbon, which combines with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide. The water and carbon dioxide are released as waste products; the ATPs leave the mitochondria and evangelize their captured energy to places in the cell where information technology is needed to power cellular activities.