text: Most eukaryotic cells have mitochondria, which produce ATP from reactions of oxygen with products of the citric acid cycle, fatty acid metabolism, and amino acid metabolism. At the inner mitochondrial membrane, electrons from NADH and FADH pass through the electron transport chain to oxygen, which provides the energy driving the process as it is reduced to water. The electron transport chain comprises an enzymatic series of electron donors and acceptors. Each electron donor will pass electrons to an acceptor of higher redox potential, which in turn donates these electrons to another acceptor, a process that continues down the series until electrons are passed to oxygen, the terminal electron acceptor in the chain. Each reaction releases energy because a higher-energy donor and acceptor convert to lower-energy products. Via the transferred electrons, this energy is used to generate a proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane by "pumping" protons into the intermembrane space, producing a state of higher free energy that has the potential to do work. This entire process is called oxidative phosphorylation since ADP is phosphorylated to ATP by using the electrochemical gradient that the redox reactions of the electron transport chain have established driven by energy-releasing reactions of oxygen.