In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin, is an acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which all the carbon–carbon bonds are single. Alkanes have the general chemical formula CnH2n+2. The alkanes range in complexity from the simplest case of methane, where n = 1, to arbitrarily large and complex molecules, like pentacontane or 6-ethyl-2-methyl-5-(1-methylethyl) octane, an isomer of tetradecane.
In organic chemistry, an alkene, or olefin, is a hydrocarbon containing a carbon–carbon double bond. The double bond may be internal or in the terminal position. Terminal alkenes are also known as α-olefins.
In organic chemistry, a functional group is a substituent or moiety in a molecule that causes the molecule's characteristic chemical reactions. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reactions regardless of the rest of the molecule's composition. This enables systematic prediction of chemical reactions and behavior of chemical compounds and the design of chemical synthesis. The reactivity of a functional group can be modified by other functional groups nearby. Functional group interconversion can be used in retrosynthetic analysis to plan organic synthesis.
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms. Study of structure determines their structural formula. Study of properties includes physical and chemical properties, and evaluation of chemical reactivity to understand their behavior. The study of organic reactions includes the chemical synthesis of natural products, drugs, and polymers, and study of individual organic molecules in the laboratory and via theoretical study.
Otto Wallach was a German chemist and recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds.
In organic chemistry, the cycloalkanes are the monocyclic saturated hydrocarbons. In other words, a cycloalkane consists only of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a structure containing a single ring, and all of the carbon-carbon bonds are single. The larger cycloalkanes, with more than 20 carbon atoms are typically called cycloparaffins. All cycloalkanes are isomers of alkenes.
In organic chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property describing the way in which a conjugated ring of unsaturated bonds, lone pairs, or empty orbitals exhibits a stabilization stronger than would be expected by the stabilization of conjugation alone. The earliest use of the term was in an article by August Wilhelm Hofmann in 1855. There is no general relationship between aromaticity as a chemical property and the olfactory properties of such compounds.
In chemical nomenclature, the IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry is a method of naming organic chemical compounds as recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). It is published in the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry. Ideally, every possible organic compound should have a name from which an unambiguous structural formula can be created. There is also an IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry.
In organic chemistry, a cycloalkene or cycloolefin is a type of alkene hydrocarbon which contains a closed ring of carbon atoms and either one or more double bonds, but has no aromatic character. Some cycloalkenes, such as cyclobutene and cyclopentene, can be used as monomers to produce polymer chains. Due to geometrical considerations, smaller cycloalkenes are almost always the cis isomers, and the term cis tends to be omitted from the names. Cycloalkenes require considerable p-orbital overlap in the form of a bridge between the carbon-carbon double bond; however, this is not feasible in smaller molecules due to the increase of strain that could break the molecule apart. In greater carbon number cycloalkenes, the addition of CH2 substituents decreases strain. trans-Cycloalkenes with 7 or fewer carbons in the ring will not occur under normal conditions because of the large amount of ring strain needed. In larger rings, cis–trans isomerism of the double bond may occur. This stability pattern forms part of the origin of Bredt's rule, the observation that alkenes do not form at the bridgehead of many types of bridged ring systems because the alkene would necessarily be trans in one of the rings.
In organic chemistry, Hückel's rule predicts that a planar ring molecule will have aromatic properties if it has 4n + 2 π electrons, where n is a non-negative integer. The quantum mechanical basis for its formulation was first worked out by physical chemist Erich Hückel in 1931. The succinct expression as the 4n + 2 rule has been attributed to W. v. E. Doering (1951), although several authors were using this form at around the same time.
In organic chemistry, a substituent is one or a group of atoms that replaces atoms, thereby becoming a moiety in the resultant (new) molecule.
In chemistry, a molecule experiences strain when its chemical structure undergoes some stress which raises its internal energy in comparison to a strain-free reference compound. The internal energy of a molecule consists of all the energy stored within it. A strained molecule has an additional amount of internal energy which an unstrained molecule does not. This extra internal energy, or strain energy, can be likened to a compressed spring. Much like a compressed spring must be held in place to prevent release of its potential energy, a molecule can be held in an energetically unfavorable conformation by the bonds within that molecule. Without the bonds holding the conformation in place, the strain energy would be released.
In organic chemistry, ring strain is a type of instability that exists when bonds in a molecule form angles that are abnormal. Strain is most commonly discussed for small rings such as cyclopropanes and cyclobutanes, whose internal angles are substantially smaller than the idealized value of approximately 109°. Because of their high strain, the heat of combustion for these small rings is elevated.
In organic chemistry, transannular strain is the unfavorable interactions of ring substituents on non-adjacent carbons. These interactions, called transannular interactions, arise from a lack of space in the interior of the ring, which forces substituents into conflict with one another. In medium-sized cycloalkanes, which have between 8 and 11 carbons constituting the ring, transannular strain can be a major source of the overall strain, especially in some conformations, to which there is also contribution from large-angle strain and Pitzer strain. In larger rings, transannular strain drops off until the ring is sufficiently large that it can adopt conformations devoid of any negative interactions.
In organic chemistry, Bredt's rule is an empirical observation that states that a double bond cannot be placed at the bridgehead of a bridged ring system, unless the rings are large enough. The rule is named after Julius Bredt, who first discussed it in 1902 and codified it in 1924. It primarily relates to bridgeheads with carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen double bonds.
Ring expansion and ring contraction reactions expand or contract rings, usually in organic chemistry. The term usually refers to reactions involve making and breaking C-C bonds, Diverse mechanisms lead to these kinds of reactions.
In organic chemistry, spiro compounds are compounds that have at least two molecular rings with only one common atom. The simplest spiro compounds are bicyclic, or have a bicyclic portion as part of the larger ring system, in either case with the two rings connected through the defining single common atom. The one common atom connecting the participating rings distinguishes spiro compounds from other bicyclics: from isolated ring compounds like biphenyl that have no connecting atoms, from fused ring compounds like decalin having two rings linked by two adjacent atoms, and from bridged ring compounds like norbornane with two rings linked by two non-adjacent atoms.
A cyclic compound is a term for a compound in the field of chemistry in which one or more series of atoms in the compound is connected to form a ring. Rings may vary in size from three to many atoms, and include examples where all the atoms are carbon, none of the atoms are carbon, or where both carbon and non-carbon atoms are present. Depending on the ring size, the bond order of the individual links between ring atoms, and their arrangements within the rings, carbocyclic and heterocyclic compounds may be aromatic or non-aromatic; in the latter case, they may vary from being fully saturated to having varying numbers of multiple bonds between the ring atoms. Because of the tremendous diversity allowed, in combination, by the valences of common atoms and their ability to form rings, the number of possible cyclic structures, even of small size numbers in the many billions.
Woodward's rules, named after Robert Burns Woodward and also known as Woodward–Fieser rules are several sets of empirically derived rules which attempt to predict the wavelength of the absorption maximum (λmax) in an ultraviolet–visible spectrum of a given compound. Inputs used in the calculation are the type of chromophores present, the auxochromes (substituents on the chromophores, and solvent. Examples are conjugated carbonyl compounds, conjugated dienes, and polyenes.
In chemistry, a ring is an ambiguous term referring either to a simple cycle of atoms and bonds in a molecule or to a connected set of atoms and bonds in which every atom and bond is a member of a cycle. A ring system that is a simple cycle is called a monocycle or simple ring, and one that is not a simple cycle is called a polycycle or polycyclic ring system. A simple ring contains the same number of sigma bonds as atoms, and a polycyclic ring system contains more sigma bonds than atoms.
