Nomenclature of Aldehydes & Ketones
Aldehydes and ketones contain the carbonyl group. Aldehydes are considered the most important functional group. They are often called the formyl or methanoyl group. Aldehydes derive their name from the dehydration…
Acetal Formation
Introduction It has been demonstrated that water adds rapidly to the carbonyl function of aldehydes and ketones to form geminal-diol. In a similar reaction alcohols add reversibly to aldehydes and…
Definition of Steric Effect
In general, the steric effect refers from the fact that the atoms composing molecules occupy some degree of space, and when atoms come too close together there's a rise in the energy…
What is a Nucleophile?
Nucleophiles are basically electron rich species which have the ability to donate electron pairs, as discussed earlier. Because of this electron pair donating tendency, all nucleophiles are Lewis Bases. The word ‘nucleophile’…
Nucleophilic Substitution, SN2, SN1
Let's begin by recalling a couple of reactions which occur with alkyl halides, but only work well when the alkyl halide is primary (the halogen is bonded to a carbon…
The peptide bond and primary structure of proteins
The primary structure of a protein is defined as the sequence of amino acids of which it is composed. This sequence ultimately determines the shape that the protein adopts, according to the…
Optical Activity
Optical activity is the ability of a chiral molecule to rotate the plane of plane-polairsed light, measured using a polarimeter. A simple polarimeter consists of a light source, polarising lens, sample tube…
Cis-Trans Isomerism in Cycloalkanes
Previously, constitutional isomers were defined as molecules that had the same molecular formula, but different atom connectivity. In this section, a new class of isomers, stereoisomers, will be introduced. Stereoisomers are molecules…
Conformations of Ethane and Butane
Conformational Isomerism is a form of stereoisomerism where interconversions of isomers are possible by rotations referring to single bonds. These isomers are termed as Conformational isomers. Rotational Energy acts as…
sp3 Hybridization
The term “sp3 hybridization” refers to the mixing character of one 2s-orbital and three 2p-orbitals to create four hybrid orbitals with similar characteristics. In order for an atom to be sp3 hybridized,…
