Are these molecules conjugated?
If Org 2 has an overall theme, it’s “resonance”. Today’s post has a very simple message. Atoms with lone pairs, π bonds, radicals, and carbocations can
Read moreIf Org 2 has an overall theme, it’s “resonance”. Today’s post has a very simple message. Atoms with lone pairs, π bonds, radicals, and carbocations can
Read moreThe previous four posts on acid-base, substitution, addition, and elimination covered the 4 main reactions in organic chemistry I. Now it’s time to go beyond
Read moreMaking Alkyl Halides From Alcohols In today’s post we show that treating alcohols with HCl, HBr, or HI (which all fall under the catch-all term
Read moreHey! Welcome to Master Organic Chemistry, just in case you’re a first time visitor. In this blog post I explain how to calculate formal charge for molecules.
Read moreIn exploring reactions that proceed along the carbocation pathway, every once in awhile you might see an example of an addition reaction that looks a
Read moreRearrangement Reactions: Alkyl Shifts In the last post we saw how certain carbocations can sometimes rearrange (through hydride shifts) to give more stable carbocations. However,
Read morePreviously we saw that there are two important classes of nucleophilic substitution reactions, which differ in their rate laws, dependence on substitution pattern, and the
Read moreOne of the key factors that determines whether a nucleophilic substitution reaction will happen or not is the identity of the leaving group. Previously, we’ve
Read moreAs I mentioned before, the resonance form(s) of lowest energy are those where the charges are minimized. However, sometimes you can’t get around it: you
Read moreI know I’ve said this before, but a whole lot of organic chemistry can be boiled down to “nucleophile attacks electrophile“. A nucleophile is a
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