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Organic Chemistry 2

Free Organic Chemistry 2 study guide: 10 units with summaries, key ideas, flashcards and 300 practice questions with step-by-step solutions.

Lines up with: Second-semester college organic chemistry.

Units

1. UNIT 01

   Spectroscopy: IR, NMR and Mass Spec

   Spectroscopy lets you deduce a structure from data: the formula gives the degrees of unsaturation, IR shows functional groups, mass spec gives the mass and fragments, and NMR maps the carbon-hydrogen framework.
2. UNIT 02

   Conjugated Systems and Diels-Alder

   Conjugated π systems spread electrons over several atoms, which makes them more stable, changes how they add electrophiles, lets them absorb UV light, and enables the Diels-Alder reaction, the most important ring-forming reaction in organic chemistry.
3. UNIT 03

   Aromaticity and Benzene

   Aromatic compounds are cyclic, planar, fully conjugated rings with 4n + 2 π electrons; this special stability explains benzene's unusual unreactivity, the acidity and basicity of many rings, and the chemistry of the benzylic position.
4. UNIT 04

   Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution

   Benzene rings react with strong electrophiles by substitution, not addition, and the groups already on the ring control both how fast the ring reacts and where the new group goes, which is the key to planning aromatic syntheses.
5. UNIT 05

   Aldehydes and Ketones: Nucleophilic Addition

   The polar C=O of aldehydes and ketones is attacked by nucleophiles at carbon, and this single idea explains reductions, Grignard additions, hydrates, acetals, imines, the Wittig reaction and much of synthetic planning.
6. UNIT 06

   Carboxylic Acids and Derivatives

   Carboxylic acids and their derivatives (acid chlorides, anhydrides, esters, amides and nitriles) interconvert by nucleophilic acyl substitution, and their relative reactivity decides which conversions are possible and which reagents to use.
7. UNIT 07

   Enols, Enolates and Alpha Substitution

   Hydrogens on the carbon next to a carbonyl are unusually acidic, so carbonyl compounds form enols and enolates that act as carbon nucleophiles, letting chemists replace α-hydrogens with halogens, alkyl groups and more.
8. UNIT 08

   Carbonyl Condensations (Aldol, Claisen)

   In condensation reactions an enolate from one carbonyl compound attacks a second carbonyl compound, forming new C–C bonds; aldol, Claisen, Michael and Robinson reactions build most of the carbon frameworks made in organic synthesis.
9. UNIT 09

   Amines

   Amines are organic bases and nucleophiles; their basicity depends on hybridization, resonance and induction, and their reactions, from Gabriel synthesis to diazonium chemistry, let chemists install nitrogen and swap aromatic substituents.
10. UNIT 10

    Biomolecules: Carbohydrates, Amino Acids, Lipids

    Carbohydrates, amino acids and lipids are organic molecules whose behavior follows the same rules as the rest of the course: hemiacetal formation, oxidation and reduction of carbonyls, acid–base equilibria, amide bonds and ester hydrolysis.