Respiratory Chain

Peter Mitchell came up with the Chemiosmotic theory in 1964. It says that the energy released by the electron transport is used to pump protons from the matrix to the intermembrane space. The protons are pumped through existing transporters, which are located between enzyme complexes on the membrane of the mitochondria. For this reason an electrochemical proton gradient is formed and it performs what is known as protonmotriz force, because when the protons pass through and enter again  the inner membrane, they do it through the ATP synthase, which is in such membranes. The protonmotriz energy is turned into binding energy in ATP molecules.