How to Separate a Mixture of Phenol, Anisole, and Benzoic Acid Using Acid-Base Extraction When separating a mixture of organic compounds, we can take advantage of two key properties: Solubility: Whether a compound dissolves in a nonpolar organic solvent like … Read more
A very common exam question in the chapter of Acids and Bases is to ask for the most acidic proton in a molecule or when comparing two molecules. So, how do we do this?If you have already covered and … Read more
Let’s first describe what a strong base and a strong acid is in the simplest words: A strong acid, if we are talking about a protic acid and not a Lewis acid in general, is one that has no problem … Read more
Let’s start today’s discussion with simple terms: Both inductive and mesomeric (resonance) effects tell us whether one part of the molecule withdraws or donates electron density to another part of the molecule. Now, why and how does one part of … Read more
This is a summary practice problem set on organic acids and bases. The questions cover: The definition of organic acids and bases, as well as conjugate acids and bases, drawing acid-base mechanism, acid and base strength based on pKa, factors … Read more
Although amines are considered weak bases, in general, their presence in neutral organic molecules makes the basic sites in those structures because they are stronger bases and nucleophiles than other neutral organic compounds. For example, in DNA, there are aromatic … Read more
Acid-Base definitions In this post, we will go over the key aspects, reactions of Lewis Acids and Bases, and their relation to other chemical reactions. Before doing that, let’s do a quick recap of acid-base definitions in general. The first … Read more
The acid-base reactions are very important in organic chemistry as they lay the foundation of many principles used in other chapters, such as resonance stabilization, substitution, elimination reactions, and many more. One of the key skills in acid-base chemistry is … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about the acid strength and its quantitative description by pKa. The pKa table shows how greatly the acidity varies for different functional groups. For example, The question is, how do we explain … Read more
In the previous post, we learned about the pKa and summarized the factors that affect the acidity and pKa value. The pKa values are mostly used in order the predict the position of the equilibrium of an acid-base reaction, as well … Read more
