Saturday, January 4, 2014

IUPAC and optical activity questions







Question 3
1. Remember the rule: select the longest chain as the parent chain
- counting horizontally from left to right gives five carbons in the chain and the parent name Pent. Since only hydrocarbon groups are involved, the parent name will be Pentane.

2. Number from the end of the chain to give the smallest number in naming
- ie counting from  left to right places the two CH3 groups at position 2 and not  4 if the chain was numbered from the right hand side.

3. Since one more similar group (methyl) is attached at position 4, this will be grouped with the others.

This gives trimethyl - two groups at position 2 and one group at position 4

Full name use option A




Question 4

1. If the molecule shows optical activity, it should form two non- superimposable isomers that are mirror images of each other. To do this the molecule must have a chiral centre. This is a carbon centre (atom) which has four different groups attached to it

2. Search the examples given for a carbon fitting this description.

3. To answer
i. Eliminate II this molecule is symmetrical.
ii. Eliminate III this will have similar (methyl) groups on the central carbon atom.
iii. I and IV fit the description and we have seen these in our text books before


Option  B is the answer

2 comments:

  1. This is a very useful blog. I think this will be an excellent resource for Chemistry students. Chemistry can sometimes be difficult but your examples here are easy to follow.

    Thank you for taking the time to put this together.

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  2. I love your simple explanations. New learners of chemistry usually find this part very difficult to unravel. I hope some of them will be able to appreciate the usefulness of online resources such as this.

    ReplyDelete