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!
Alcohols can be prepared by reduction of aldehydes, ketones, esters and other carbonyl containing compounds. There are dozens of reagents such as LiAlH4, BaBH4, DIBAL for reducing carbonyls to alcohols. Each of these reagents has advantages and disadvantages. Some are … Read more
Preparation of Alcohols from Alkyl Halides Alcohols can be prepared by substitution reactions using hydroxides and substrates with good leaving groups, such as alkyl halides. Primary substrates react by the SN2 mechanism, while tertiary substrates undergo SN1 reactions when strong … Read more
Naming alcohols follows the same rules we discussed earlier for the IUPAC nomenclature rules for alkanes. This is the brief summary of the steps: Step 1. Identify the parent chain. Step 2. Identify the substituents. Step 3. Number the parent chain, giving … Read more
Importance of radical Halogenation The source of the large majority of organic materials used for a countless number of applications, which can be plastics, drugs, paints, clothes, electronics and many more is the crude oil. We need to … Read more
Before going into the details of allylic bromination, let’s quickly recall what the term allylic means. An allylic position is the carbon atom adjacent to a double bond. Here is a summary of the different positions and their corresponding carbocations … Read more
In this post, we will talk about the stereochemistry of radical halogenation, which can lead to a racemic mixture of enantiomers or diastereomers. Before getting into more details, let’s recall that radicals are similar to carbocations as both are trigonal … Read more
We have seen earlier that resonance structures, whether they involve carbocations or carbanions, always involve a π bond(s). This is because in resonance structures, we can only make and break π bonds, but we can never break or form σ … Read more
Radicals are reactive species with a single unpaired electron. They are formed by homolytic cleavage of a covalent bond, meaning that each atom gets one electron of the covalent bond upon its breaking. An example is the hemolysis of halogens, … Read more
In the previous post, when discussing the mechanism of radical halogenation, we saw that polyhalogenation is a common issue as it results in a mixture of haloalkanes. Monohalogenation, on the other hand, is more useful for preparing haloalkanes used in … Read more
In today’s post, we will discuss the radical halogenation of alkanes. This is one of the few reactions that alkanes undergo, and it is an extremely important transformation because the products are alkyl halides. As we already know from the … Read more
