Alkanes

Common Mistakes: Drawing Tetrahedral Carbons

March 12, 2013

There is a knack to drawing proper tetrahedrons. And some very common pitfalls that might not be immediately obvious. One of the challenges that has faced chemists since the days of Van’t Hoff’s controversial (for the 1870′s!) proposal that carbons attached to four substituents can adopt a tetrahedral geometry is that of trying to depict [...]

Tagged as: alkanes, dash, geometry, mistakes, molecular geometry, stereochemistry, tetrahedral, wedge

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Khan Academy for Organic Chemistry – Part 2

September 21, 2012

Khan Academy for Organic Chemistry, Part 2: Bonding, Conformations, and Stereochemistry This second  installment of the guide to Khan Academy organic chemistry videos covers videos 13 to 26, covering the topics of chemical bonding, conformational analysis, and stereochemistry. It also goes into the naming conventions for alkenes. Video #13 Title: “sp3 Hybridized Orbitals And Sigma [...]

Tagged as: cahn-ingold-prelog, chirality, entgegen, isomers, khan academy, newman projections

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Khan Academy Videos for Organic Chemistry – Part 1

September 18, 2012

Khan Academy Videos for Organic Chemistry Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past two years, you’ve heard about Khan Academy. And if you haven’t – geez, where have you been? Here is the relevant Ted talk to give you an idea. So just in case you’re one of those few who isn’t in [...]

Tagged as: khan academy, videos

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Reaction Friday: Free-radical chlorination of alkanes

Reaction Friday: Free-radical chlorination of alkanes

January 13, 2012

One of the new things I wanted to do this year was to start doing videos. Since I was starting to run out of reagents to talk about for Reagent Friday, one thought was to start talking about reactions instead – and maybe make a video for each. So today starts a new experiment: Reaction [...]

Tagged as: alkanes, chlorination, Cl2, free radicals, halogenation, Reaction Friday

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Reagent Friday: Zinc Amalgam (Zn-Hg)

Reagent Friday: Zinc Amalgam (Zn-Hg)

December 9, 2011

In a blatant plug for the Reagent Guide and the Reagents App for iPhone, each Friday  I profile a different reagent that is commonly encountered in Org 1/ Org 2.  What it’s used for: For our purposes, zinc amalgam has one important use: in the Clemmensen reduction of ketones to alkanes. Similar to: The reagent has essentially the same [...]

Tagged as: acid, aromatic chemistry, clemmensen, Reagent guide, reagents, reagents app, reduction, zn(hg)

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Reagent Friday: Palladium on Carbon (Pd/C)

November 25, 2011

In a blatant plug for the Reagent Guide and the Reagents App for iPhone, each Friday  I profile a different reagent that is commonly encountered in Org 1/ Org 2.  It’s almost been 100 years since Paul Sabatier was awarded the 1912 Nobel prize for his discovery that hydrogen gas will add to alkenes (among other molecules, such as [...]

Tagged as: alkenes, H2, hydrogenation, pd/c, reagent friday, reduction, stereoselective

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Introduction to Oxidative Cleavage Reactions

November 1, 2011

The four posts on acid-base, substitution, addition, and elimination covered the 4 main reactions in organic chemistry I. In this second series of posts we go beyond these to introduce a few of the less common (but still important) reactions you learn in organic chemistry 1. We’ve talked about rearrangements and free-radical substitution: we finish up here with lots of  cleavage (oxidative cleavage). [...]

Tagged as: C-C bond breaking, cleavage, naIO4, o3, oxidation, oxidative cleavage, oxidizing agents, ozone, ozonolysis, pb(oac)4

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Introduction to Free Radical Substitution Reactions

Introduction to Free Radical Substitution Reactions

October 25, 2011

The four posts on acid-base, substitution, addition, and elimination covered the 4 main reactions in organic chemistry I. In this second series of posts we go beyond these to introduce a few of the less common (but still important) reactions you learn in organic chemistry 1. We talked about rearrangements last time: today let’s talk about free-radical substitution, and leave cleavage (oxidative [...]

Tagged as: alkyl halides, chlorination, free radicals, homolytic cleavage, initiation, radical stability, substitution

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Reagent Friday: Hydrazine (NH2NH2)

Reagent Friday: Hydrazine (NH2NH2)

September 24, 2011

In a blatant plug for the Reagent Guide and the Reagents App for iPhone, each Friday  I profile a different reagent that is commonly encountered in Org 1/ Org 2.  The first time I ever heard about hydrazine, it was from my instructor for 3rd year advanced organic chemistry, Walt Szarek.  “If ya ever work with this stuff”, he [...]

Tagged as: alkanes, explosives, hydrazine, hydrazone, reagent friday, Reagent guide, reagents app, wolff-kishner

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Summary Sheet #8: The Oxidation Ladder

August 15, 2011

Following up on this post, here’s an attempt at trying to put many of the reactions in organic chemistry in perspective, from the standpoint of oxidation state. Note that there’s a lot of gaps – very little on amines, for instance, and no treatment of epoxides or diols – but I hope that people will [...]

Tagged as: oxidation, oxidizing agents, reducing agents, reduction, Summary Sheets

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