Today we’ll talk about an incredibly important skill that might take some time to grasp but pays tremendous dividends. We’ll go through the exact details of how to use a pKa table. Understanding the proper use of a pKa table will give you the ability to recognize which acid-base reactions will happen and which will not. This will come up a lot as you progress through Org 1 and Org 2. It might be helpful to go back and review some of the factors that affect acidity that were talked about earlier.
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The importance of pKa values in organic chemistry can’t be overestimated, in my opinion. Not knowing pKa values in organic chemistry is like not knowing
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Good Leaving Groups Are Weak Bases A leaving group (a.k.a. “nucleofuge”) is the new Lewis base that is generated in various substitution and elimination reactions when
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Reversible And Irreversible Acid-Base Reactions Last time we learned about pKa and how it’s the closest thing we have to a universal measurement of the
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Acid-Base Reactions Are Generally Faster Than Substitution Or Addition Reactions Here is a very common dilemma in organic chemistry as you move through the latter parts
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Protonation and Deprotonation: How They Affect Reactivity One thing has been missing from our discussion of acid-base reactions. Who cares? What does it matter that
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So given identical reactlon conditions (e.g. temperature, solvent, and electrophile) the conjugate base is always a better nucleophile.
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