The only way of mastering any topic in Organic Chemistry is doing lots of practice problems. And I know, seeing my students, that starting to work on a practice problem may be the hardest part as you don’t know where to start. It is difficult to visualize what where the double bond would be moved if you follow the five curved arrows crammed in one step. Here is the trick:
We are always told to think before doing something. Fair enough. But let me tell you, it is also strangely enough, that in Organic Chemistry, it is often better to draw and then think about what you did (not in the lab though). It is much easier to have a structure in front of you and check for errors and improvements.
Do the first step, take the pencil and you will see that the ball gets rolling.
You have all these Organic Chemistry Practice Problems waiting to be solved!
We have seen many different addition reactions of alkenes and conjugated systems. One of them was the reaction of alkenes with bromine. Bromine is a red liquid and it is an indicator for the presence of alkenes since the double … Read more
Monosubstituted Derivatives of Benzene Benzene is the “first and simplest” aromatic compound, and many monosubstituted derivatives of benzene are named systematically by adding the name of the substituent to “benzene” which is the parent: For examples: If the … Read more
Let’s compare the following two Diels-Alder reactions: The first one is a reaction between a symmetrical diene and a dienophile, and the second one is a reaction of an unsymmetrical diene and a dienophile. What is interesting here … Read more
When a cyclic diene is used in the Diels-Alder reaction, a bridged bicyclic compound is formed: This looks ordinary until we draw the product from a side view, which reveals some nice structures and interesting features of the … Read more
In this post, we will discuss how to predict the product of Diels–Alder reactions. The key idea is that you are forming two new σ bonds between the diene and the dienophile in a single step, so you need to … Read more
In this post, we will discuss the reactivity and specifics of the diene and the dienophile in the Diels-Alder reaction. First, a reminder that the Diels-Alder reaction is a type of pericyclic reaction between a conjugated diene (two double bonds) … Read more
Check Also in Conjugated Systems: Resonance and Conjugated Dienes Allylic Carbocations 1,2 and 1,4 Electrophilic Addition to Dienes Kinetic vs Thermodynamic Control of Electrophilic Addition to Dienes Predict the Products of the Diels-Alder Reaction Endo and Exo products of Diels-Alder … Read more
The mechanism of electrophilic addition to dienes is similar to what we learned in the addition reactions of alkenes. The difference here is that there are two double bonds, and the question you may start wondering about is: “Which of … Read more
Before we go into the details of the structure and stability of allylic carbocations, let’s first define what the allylic position is and compare it with the vinylic, benzylic, and phenyl positions. The allylic position is the carbon atom adjacent … Read more
