The only way of mastering any topic in Organic Chemistry is doing lots of practice problems. And I know, seeing my students, that starting to work on a practice problem may be the hardest part as you don’t know where to start. It is difficult to visualize what where the double bond would be moved if you follow the five curved arrows crammed in one step. Here is the trick:
We are always told to think before doing something. Fair enough. But let me tell you, it is also strangely enough, that in Organic Chemistry, it is often better to draw and then think about what you did (not in the lab though). It is much easier to have a structure in front of you and check for errors and improvements.
Do the first step, take the pencil and you will see that the ball gets rolling.
You have all these Organic Chemistry Practice Problems waiting to be solved!
In the previous post, we talked about the staggered and eclipsed conformations of ethane, and saw that these are the least and most stable conformations that differ by a 12 kJ/mol rotation barrier: The staggered conformation is the … Read more
From General Chemistry and earlier chapters of Organic Chemistry, we know that C-C single bonds are formed by a linear overlap of sp3 orbitals. As an example, let’s recall how each carbon in ethane provides one sp3 orbital to form … Read more
The 4n+2 rule, also known as the Hückel’s rule, is the required number of delocalized electrons in a cyclic, planar, a fully conjugated molecule to make it aromatic. For example, let’s see how the 4n + 2 rule is used … Read more
Reductive amination is used for preparing amines from aldehydes and ketones. All we need is to mix an amine with an aldehyde or ketone in the presence of sodium cyanoborohydride (NaBH3CN) at lower pH levels: So, how does … Read more
This article is written to address the topic that starts causing lots of confusion when the explanation deviates from the “in SN2, a wedge becomes a dash, and a dash becomes a wedge” statement. So, let’s start with this statement … Read more
When a beta hydroxy carbonyl compound is treated with a moderately strong base, such as a hydroxide or an alkoxide, an elimination occurs by expelling the hydroxyl group. The most common example is the aldol condensation reaction: So, … Read more
Recall, from General Chemistry, that some reactions such as the combustion of methane, ethane, or propane where the molecules were given by their formulas (CH4, C2H6, C3H8). This is how we work with molecules at the beginning of general chemistry … Read more
Back in general chemistry, you have encountered organic molecules that were shown either by a formula or a 2-D structure where all the atoms were shown in the same plane. For example, methane, ethane, propane, and even complex molecules such … Read more
By experimental methods, which we’ll discuss later, it has been shown that cycloalkanes are generally less stable than their corresponding alkanes. More accurately, the comparison was made between a cycloalkane and the equivalent number of CH2 groups. Recall that cycloalkanes … Read more
Earlier on, when discussing the reactions of alcohols, we learned that the hydroxyl group is not a (good) leaving group, and one of the ways to address this problem was converting it into a mesylate or tosylate group. These are … Read more
