If you haven’t noticed by now, carbon is the most important atom in the organic chemistry world. It is all about carbon chemistry.
Here’s a hint: if it doesn’t have carbon in it, it is most likely not an organic molecule. Carbon is the basis of everything in this class. In some cases carbon will be a nucleophile, and in others it will be an electrophile. If you’re just starting out, there are some things you should know about carbon that will make your life a lot easier through your organic chemistry class.
- Carbon is the most important atom in the organic chemistry world. I think we have sufficiently emphasized this point now.
- The sp3 carbon atom is a tetrahedral molecule with bond angles at exactly 109.5 degrees.
- Carbon atoms can be hybridized in three separate ways. sp, sp2 and sp3. sp3 hybridized carbons are seen in alkanes. sp2 hybridized carbons are seen in alkenes, and sp hybridized carbons are seen in alkynes. See below for a good picture of the bond angles for each.
- Carbon usually has four bonds to it. It can sometimes have three bond, and in rare circumstances even have two bonds. It will never never never never never have 5 bonds. Did I say never enough times? Seriously, don’t ever put 5 bonds to carbon please.
- Chains of carbon are called hydrocarbons and really only do two things. They are solvents, and they can be burned. That’s really about it. This is because there is not a huge difference in electronegativity between carbon and hydrogen. Therefore it is not a polar bond, which means it doesn’t have polarized electrons which facilitate chemical reactions. This makes hydrocarbons very boring and non-reactive. Nonpolar, boring nonreactive molecules are great nonpolar solvents. But other than that they really don’t do much. There are ways to activate the C-H bond to do chemistry, but most of those are beyond the scope of undergraduate organic chemistry. The exception is free radical halogenation of an alkane.
Dr. Michael Pa
Dr. Michael Pa got a bachelors degree in chemistry from Binghamton University, a masters degree in organic chemistry from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Arizona. His research focus was on novel pain killers which were more potent than morphine but designed to have fewer side effects. There may even be a patent or two that came out of it. Prior to all of this, he was a chemist at Procter and Gamble. After all of that, he (briefly) worked as a post-doctoral assistant at Syracuse University, working on novel organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In between, he did NOT compete at the 1996 Olympics, make the Atlanta Braves opening day roster, or become the head coach of the Indiana Pacers, as he had intended. #fail During this entire time, he always loved helping students, especially if they were struggling with organic chemistry. In 2006, Dr. Pa founded AceOrganicChem.com in order to make learning organic chemistry fast and easy. 14 years and about 60,000 students later we are still helping students to learn organic chemistry one reaction at a time at https://www.aceorganicchem.com
