Organic Chemistry

Organic Chemistry: Extra Credit Exercise

The following is a brief introduction to organic chemistry. To receive extra credit, you will need to read through the information below and use it to complete the assignment on the last page of this document. The assignment will be checked for accuracy, and your score will determine the amount of extra credit you receive. Your completed work must be turned in no later than Friday, 5/31 at 2:00pm. Incomplete assignments will NOT be accepted.

Introduction

Organic chemistry is the part of chemistry concerned with organic compounds: compounds that contain carbon. There are many types of organic compounds, each with unique characteristics and identifying structures. We will discuss several of the common types of organic compounds, learn to identify the hybridization of bonds in a compound, learn to identify organic compounds, learn to name them, and finally, learn to draw representations for their structures.

Structures

One of the structures we will be drawing is called a Kekulé structure: bonding electrons (bonds) are drawn as lines between the symbols for the atoms, and non-bonding electrons (lone pair electrons) are typically not shown. An example is shown below.

Another way of showing the structure of a molecule is by giving the condensed structure: it lists the groups of atoms as they are paired (bonded) in the molecule. For example, the Kekulé structure shown above would have the following condensed structure:

CH3CH2CH3

Finally, we can represent molecules using the skeleton structure. Carbon-carbon bonds are shown as straight lines, and only non-carbon elements (or hydrogens bonded to non-carbon elements) are shown. Each corner/ end is a carbon atom.

Hybridization

When atoms bond together, the orbitals of those electrons often combine to form a hybrid orbital. This is called hybridization. There is an easy trick to determine the hybridization of any atom in a compound: count the number of bonding...