Synthetic Chemistry For All
Organic reactions are facilitated and controlled by the functional groups of the reactants. In general, alkyls are unreactive and difficult to get to react selectively at the desired positions, with few exceptions. In contrast, unsaturated carbon functional groups, and carbon-oxygen and carbon-nitrogen functional groups have a more diverse array of reactions that are also selective. It may be necessary to create a functional group in the molecule to make it react. For example, to synthesize iso-octane (the 8-carbon ideal gasoline) from the unfunctionalized alkane isobutane (a 4-carbon gas), isobutane is first dehydrogenated into isobutene. This contains the alkene functional group and can now dimerize with another isobutene to give iso-octene, which is then catalytically hydrogenated to iso-octane using pressured hydrogen gas.
Read more about this topic: Functional Group
Famous quotes containing the words synthetic and/or chemistry:
“In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
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