Thomas Winwood - 25-11-2005 at 08:19
This felt a little too general to go in Organic Chemistry, but feel free to move it over if I'm wrong.
I'm accustomed to reading "ethanol" for "EtOH" and "methanol" for "MeOH", but how far do these
abbreviations go? Where can I find more information?
Darkblade48 - 25-11-2005 at 08:30
I don't have a link, but I've seen isopropanol abbreviated as IpOH
BromicAcid - 25-11-2005 at 10:11
Relevent Thread
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2670
CherrieBaby - 25-11-2005 at 12:22
This web-site really needs a page of links to external sites. For instance. Journal abbreviations, named reactions, etc.
A good book is "The Organic Chemist's Desk Reference", P.H. Rhodes which has some pages on compound abbreviations. The standard for
these abbreviations is set by Chemical Abstracts.
Ac - acetyl - CH3-CO-
Am - amyl - C5H11-
Bn - benzyl - C6H5-CH2-
Bu - butyl - C4H9-
Bz - Benzoyl - C6H5-CO-
Et - Ethyl - C2H5-
Me - Methyl - CH3-
Ph - Phenyl - C6H5-
Pr - Propyl - C3H7-
nBu - n-butyl
iBu - iso-butyl
sBu - sec-butyl
tBu - tert-butyl
These are the important ones.
sparkgap - 25-11-2005 at 18:57
Specialists also tend to have their own collection of abbreviations. For example, those in peptide synthesis have stuff like Boc, Fmoc, Cbz (which
IIRC is the same as Boc, why'd they make another acronym? 
), and others.
Don't forget the abbreviated reagents like PCC, 9-BBN, TMEDA/TEMED, and DEAD as well. 
Darkblade48, whatever your source was, they should have abbreviated 2-propanol as i-PrOH.
sparky (~_~)
sparkgap - 3-12-2005 at 03:25
A useful link for those curious about chemical acronyms and abbreviations:
http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/cgi-bin/abbscomp/molform
sparky (^_^)
NJF - 23-12-2005 at 16:16
Next time you're at a good library, look for a book on total synthesis. They often have several pages of abbreviations at the front for weird
protecting groups and such. It's cool to look for the ones whose abbreviations have been influenced by their properties, such as DIE .
(I can't remember what DIE was now, just that it was rather toxic!)