Amines

Carbonyl Mechanisms: Neutral Nucleophiles, Part 1

May 10, 2010

Today, building on the previous 2-part series on mechanisms of anionic nucleophiles in carbonyl chemistry, I’m going to start looking at the reactions of the neutral nucleophiles: water, alcohols, amines, enols and enamines, using this chart as our guide. I think it’s fun to take something complicated and break it down logically into smaller, simpler [...]

Tagged as: acid, alcohols, amines, bases, carbonyls, electrophiles, mechanisms, nucleophiles, proton transfer, water

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Summary Sheet #3: Reactions of Carbonyls – The Big Picture

April 23, 2010

The reason why I harp on organic chemistry as boiling down to “nucleophile attacks electrophile” is because it’s a greatly simplifying way to look at chemical reactions. After you’ve done organic synthesis for awhile, you start looking at functional groups like they were really complicated pieces of Lego: while their shape, size, and colour may be [...]

Tagged as: aldol, amines, carbonyls, claisen, enamines, enolates, studying, Summary Sheets, williamson

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