Organic Reactions and Acid-Base Chemistry

1. Introduction to Organic Reactions

    • Vocabulary for Organic Reactions: Essential for describing, understanding, and categorizing new reactions. Categorization helps in applying existing knowledge to unfamiliar reactions.
    • For example, recognizing a reaction as a substitution allows us to leverage prior knowledge of substitution reactions.
    • Four Main Kinds of Reactions:
      1. Addition Reactions: Introduced with alkenes.
      2. Substitution Reactions: Introduced with alkyl halides.
      3. Elimination Reactions: Introduced with alkyl halides.
      4. Rearrangement Reactions: Introduced later (e.g., alkynes, alcohols). These involve making new bonds without adding or removing atoms.

2. Brønsted Acids and Bases

    • Definitions:
      • A Brønsted acid donates a proton (H+H^+).
      • A Brønsted base accepts a proton (H+H^+).
    • Examples:
      • From General Chemistry: Acid + Base ightarrowightarrow Salt + Water (e.g., HCl+NaOHightarrowNaCl+H2OHCl + NaOH ightarrow NaCl + H_2O).
        • **Why reactions