Nucleophilic Acyl Substitution (With Negatively Charged Nucleophiles) Yes, there are a lot of reactions of carboxylic acid derivatives to learn! In this article we’ll explore
Read more
Basic Hydrolysis of Esters (Saponification) When esters are treated with sodium hydroxide, they are converted into carboxylate salts, which upon neutralization yield carboxylic acids. This
Read more
Carboxylic Acid to Ester Under Acidic Conditions (Fischer Esterification) The conversion of a carboxylic acid to an ester under acidic conditions is commonly known as
Read more
The other day while going through Claisen condensations with a student, we came upon this pretty typical problem: The student duly deprotonated the alpha carbon
Read more
Functional Groups Summary Sheet I thought it would be good to make a summary sheet based on functional groups, so here one is: Functional Group
Read more
SN2 Reaction Examples To Give Alcohols, Ethers, Thiols, Sulfies, Alkynes, and More. Having gone through the mechanism of the SN2 reaction, let’s take a second
Read more
Lithium Aluminum Hydride (LAH, LiAlH4) For the Reduction of Carboxylic Acid Derivatives Lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH4) is a strong reducing agent similar to, but stronger
Read more
Reduction of Acid Halides To Aldehydes With LiAlH(OtBu)3 or Rosenmund’s Catalyst Acid halides can be reduced to aldehydes through use of the bulky reducing agent
Read more
How To Determine Which Functional Group Has “Priority” For Naming Purposes When a molecule has multiple functional groups, we could potentially run into problems when
Read more