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3: Properties and Principles

  • Page ID
    413126
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    • 3.0: Non-covalent interactions
      To understand the nature of noncovalent interactions, we first must return to covalent bonds and delve into the subject of dipoles. Many of the covalent bonds that we have seen – between two carbons, for example, or between a carbon and a hydrogen –involve the approximately equal sharing of electrons between the two atoms in the bond. In these examples, the two atoms have approximately the same electronegativity.
    • 3.1: Physical properties of organic compounds
      Virtually all of the organic chemistry that you will see in this course takes place in the solution phase. In the organic laboratory, reactions are often run in nonpolar or slightly polar solvents such as toluene (methylbenzene), dichloromethane, or diethylether.
    • 3.2: Resonance
      These two drawings are an example of what is referred to in organic chemistry as resonance contributors: two or more different Lewis structures depicting the same molecule or ion that, when considered together, do a better job of approximating delocalized pi-bonding than any single structure. By convention, resonance contributors are linked by a double-headed arrow, and are sometimes enclosed by brackets:
    • 3.3: Molecular orbital theory- conjugation and aromaticity
      Valence bond theory does a remarkably good job at explaining the bonding geometry of many of the functional groups in organic compounds. There are some areas, however, where the valence bond theory falls short. It fails to adequately account, for example, for some interesting properties of compounds that contain alternating double and single bonds. In order to understand these properties, we need to think about chemical bonding in a new way, using the ideas of molecular orbital (MO) theory.


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