Aldehydes can not only accept hydrogen atoms to be reduced to alcohols, showing their oxidation properties; but also can donate hydrogen atoms of the C(sp 2 )À H bonds as hydrogen atom donors, showing their reduction properties. In this article, the hydrogen atom transfer reactions of eight aldehydes and free radicals in acetonitrile at 298 K were studied. The thermokinetic parameters ΔG ¼ 6 °(XH) of C(sp 2 )À H bonds in aldehydes were obtained byas the ΔG ¼ 6 °(Y) of free radicals were available in our previous work. The bond dissociation free energies ΔG o (XH) of C(sp 2 )À H bonds were calculated by iBonD HM method. The intrinsic resistance energies ΔG ¼ 6XH/X were determined as the ΔG ¼ 6 °(XH) and ΔG o (XH) were available. ΔG o (XH), ΔG ¼ 6 XH/X , and ΔG ¼ 6 °(XH) were used to access the H-donating abilities of C(sp 2 )À H bonds in aldehydes in thermodynamics, kinetics and actual HAT reactions. The scales and the effect of the structures of aldehydes on ΔG o (XH), ΔG ¼ 6 XH/X , and ΔG ¼ 6 °(XH) were discussed carefully. The oxidizing and reducing abilities of aldehydes, and the comparison of H-donating abilities between C(sp 2 )À H of aldehydes with C(sp 3 )À H of the corresponding alcohols were also researched in detail. This paper not only fills the gap in the study of H-donating activities of aldehydic CÀ H bonds, but also provides data support for the design and synthesis of more C(sp 2 )À H type antioxidants.