Basic things about Organic Chemistry I wish someone had told me before!

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 Chemistry was initially quite difficult for me to understand. Here are a few basic concepts which when understood perfectly will help. I am assuming you have an idea about some things in chemistry.

Bonds

Chemical bonds are of four basic types:

  1. Ionic bond
  2. Covalent bond
  3. Hydrogen bond
  4. van der Waals interactions 
Organic compounds generally contain covalent bonds. Covalent bonds are formed by sharing of electrons so that individual atoms get a stable configuration. It is of two types, 
  • Sigma bond
  • Pi bond
Sigma bond is the strongest type of covalent bond which is formed by head on overlap of the atomic orbital.



Pi bond is formed by the lateral overlap of the orbitals. This leads to the formation of double and triple bond. The pi bonds are shorter and stronger than sigma bond.




Nucleophile vs Electrophile

Whenever I saw these two words, I landed up being extensively confused! They sound exactly the same. The solution to this problem came up quite easily, remember that nucleophile means nucleus loving and electrophile is electron loving.


A nucleophile has a tendency to donate electrons whereas an electrophile has a tendency to accept electrons. The nucleus in an atom possesses a positive charge, the nucleophile is nucleus loving which implies that a nucleophile must have a negative charge or an extra pair of electrons. For electrophiles, it is the opposite.

This particular concept is quite important because reaction mechanisms can be easily understood once you get the hang of this.
 


Reaction mechanism/Synthesis 

The key to understanding a reaction mechanism/synthesis is knowing how to read it then proceeding to figure out what exactly happens. 

The arrow always shows the movement of electrons. The arrowhead points to the site of less electron density. 

Never memorize a synthesis, understand it. Remember the starting material, the reagent and the end product. The steps will automatically come. 
 
The next post covers the rest! 





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