Sciencemadness Discussion Board

NEED HELP WITH CHEMISTRY

chemist in training - 29-11-2014 at 04:20

hi

i am an amature chemist and have been interested in the field of chemistry all of my life. i have run into a dead end with one important field of study and that is HOW TO CREATE CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS (i don't know waht it is actually called). for instance if you have benzene and want to turn it into something else by adding, say a cyclopentane with a dimethyl side chain, how would i do it and what is this field of study called so i can look it up and research more. i know it is based in reactions but how do i decide what reaction and what solvents to use.

any help will be greatly appreciated.

Little_Ghost_again - 29-11-2014 at 05:17

Organic chemistry would be a good start point! That is where you find out about thing like the Halloform reaction.
There are many many great books etc on this field of chemistry, Vogel is one that jumps straight to my mind, google books by I Vogel, he has written widely from both a beginners level right up and beyond.
I also love the book basic principles of organic chemistry by John D Roberts, there is also two famous authors with the same surname (book not at hand so cant remember) but its something like fisher.
Organic chemistry volume 1 by I.L Finar is also pretty good. But for practicle stuff VOGEL 3rd ed gets my vote!

Mailinmypocket - 29-11-2014 at 05:27

Check out the forum library for Vogel and others. Lots of free resources there for organic chemistry/synthesis.

http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/index.html

chemist in training - 29-11-2014 at 08:54

thanks for the answers, will be sure to check the books out. :D

chemist in training - 29-11-2014 at 09:06

and also just to kick me off. is there anyone who is a trained organic chemist who could answer the probem i am having at the moment. say i have a compound and have designed a compound. how would i synthesise it. i know to first break it down into smaller compounds(retrosynthetic analysis) but how would i add something like a hydroxy group?

Furboffle - 30-11-2014 at 20:16

the substrate can affect the route. what is it you're trying to make or what is it your wanting to attach a hydroxyl group to?

forgottenpassword - 30-11-2014 at 23:28

You seem to have an understanding of what is involved already. You will find that reading well structured books will help you to gain a good practical knowledge of what you seek.

If you need to learn organic chemistry, then as far as I am aware this is the best general textbook available: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Chemistry-Jonathan-Clayden/d...

For planning organic syntheses, books such as the following may be useful: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Synthesis-The-Disconnection-...

There are a few similar books, and you will have to decide which one suits your needs most closely.

For practical chemistry techniques, Vogel's Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry is still unrivalled, as far as I am aware.
For actual synthetic procedures, Organic Syntheses is a very good start and will give you a large range of reproducible techniques to effect changes on a molecular level: http://www.orgsyn.org/
You can browse the pictures for ideas of transformations, or read the experimental sections for ideas of what is practically involved. Beyond that, journal articles have the bulk of synthetic chemistry reactions, but they require subscriptions to access. You can find some examples posted in these forums as attachments, however, and it will give you a flavour of how chemistry is currently presented.

[Edited on 1-12-2014 by forgottenpassword]

aga - 2-12-2014 at 15:24

Where are the peanuts ?

forgottenpassword - 3-12-2014 at 01:18

Why post crap?

MrHomeScientist - 3-12-2014 at 10:31

Why so serious?




On topic: if you (the OP) describe your question in more detail than "I have a compound... how would i synthesize it" you are much more likely to get useful replies.

aga - 3-12-2014 at 11:04

The OP obviously knows a lot more than is stated.

A lot more.

A Serious request for Chemistry help would be more along the lines of 'Where the hell do i start with OC' rather than 'How do i add a functional group to benzene'

I would suspect a totally innocent Next question, like 'how do i add an amine fg to ...' if the OP had been answered with a recipe.

'Where are the peanuts' will tend to spring up wherever appropriate.

FireLion3 - 8-12-2014 at 11:23

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
The OP obviously knows a lot more than is stated.

A lot more.

A Serious request for Chemistry help would be more along the lines of 'Where the hell do i start with OC' rather than 'How do i add a functional group to benzene'

I would suspect a totally innocent Next question, like 'how do i add an amine fg to ...' if the OP had been answered with a recipe.

'Where are the peanuts' will tend to spring up wherever appropriate.


I got the same feeling. Something seems off about this question. OP asks about very very specific things and uses very specific chemistry words, and in the same sentence basically asks, what is chemistry. I am confused.