organic chemistry- chemistry concerning carbon-containing compounds

Why is Carbon Special?

• can form strong bonds with multiple atoms of itself in a chain

• can bond with many other elements like hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and phosphorus

  • brings diversity in compounds that can be formed

    • this allows it to be the basis of life

• carbon can also form double and triple bonds

• carbon is tetravalent- it can remove/gain 4 electrons

• functional groups- increase the functionality/reactivity of a molecule

Other Elements

• oxygen is divalent- it can gain 2 electrons

• nitrogen is trivalent- it can gain 3 electrons

• hydrogen is always monovalent- it can lose 1 electron

Types of Structures/Formulas & Other Conventions

• lewis structures- show lone pairs as well as number & type of bond present in the molecule

• condensed formula- writing the carbons with their hydrogens

  • example- C20H42O can also be written as CH3(CH2)19OH

• **bond line formula- **shown below

  

• n-(insert molecular formula or name of hydrocarbon) means it’s “normal” & not branched

  • example- *n-*butane

• isomers- molecules with the same molecular formula but different structures

  • the number of isomers tends to increase as the number of carbons in the compound increases

Hydrocarbons

• made of only carbon and hydrogen

• not very functionally useful

• mostly used for energy

• 2 types

  • saturated- maximum amount of hydrogens are in the molecule, all carbons have single bonds

    • also called alkanes

  • unsaturated- some carbons have double or triple bonds

IUPAC Nomenclature

• parent chain is the longest identifiable carbon chain present in the molecule

  • if 2 chains have the same length, the parent chain is the one with the most substituents

• carbons in the chain are numbered so the substituents get the lowest number possible

  • if some substituents have the same number no matter numbering from left to right, numbering starts from the end where the next substituent has the lowest number

• give the lowest number to the substituent whose letter is first in the alphabet

• if more than one of the same type of substituent is present, use the prefixes di- for 2, tri- for 3, tetra- for 4, etc. to indicate the number

• substituents are listed in alphabetical order

  • ignore numerical prefixes in alphabetization (like di-, tri-, tetra-)

  • don’t ignore positional prefixes like iso-

• names and numbers are separated by dashes

multiple numbers are separated by commas

• halogens as substituents

  • F: fluoro-

  • Cl: chloro-

  • Br: bromo-

  • I: iodo-

Example