Welcome to my blog! Very simply, I am a first year university student with a huge passion for chemistry, especially organic chemistry. There are many fields of chemistry, but I feel that there are four in general, which are analytical, physical, organic and inorganic chemistry. Analytical and physical chemistry are more calculation-based, which means more pen-and-paper work, which I dislike. In my opinion, the true essence of chemistry is captured in laboratory work, where synthesis of compounds are performed and chemical reactions are observed. Now, let’s get to the fun stuff:
My Favourite Molecule:
Azulene has perhaps one of the most interesting structures I have seen so far in organic chemistry. Surprisingly, it is aromatic - but its structural isomer, naphthalene, is also aromatic and is much more stable than it. This shows us that aromaticity does not confer absolute values of stability, and this may vary between compounds. Another interesting concept we have to consider is that the two fused rings are not chemically similar, with the cycloheptatriene ring being electrophilic and the cyclopentadiene ring being nucleophilic. Although I have not looked up the relevant literature, I would guess that the cyclopentadiene would be relatively more nucleophilic because of the higher ‘concentration’ of pi electron density throughout a smaller ring (which is probably incorrect). What amazes me is that such a complex molecule can even be found in nature, which was in fact how it was first discovered.
My Favorite Reaction:
This reaction here is the Fries rearrangement, which not only sounds tasty, but has a very interesting mechanism. This is especially in the second step, where the RCO moiety leaves as an electrophilic species. It then subsequently attacks different positions on the benzene ring, the ortho and para positions, two produce different products at different temperatures. What I find interesting is that the ester will be rearranged to become ‘closer’ to the aromatic ring, becoming an acyl group, through the rearrangement. The mechanism, to me, also seems fairly surprisingly simple. Thus why it is one of the more interesting reactions I have seen so far.
My Blog:
This blog discusses generally organic chemistry and some of the enrichment type of stuff that will rarely be encountered. Usually, an article will be split into a few parts and this is grouped into a progressive type of difficulty: the first article discusses the foundational concepts (things that you are already expected to know), the second article discusses the advanced concepts (things that build onto the foundational concepts and are the bulk of what you are expected to know or learn), and the third article discusses the enrichment concepts. Note that this is just a general guideline and sometimes the concepts may be stretched across different articles.
Technical Stuff:
My posting schedule is generally two or three blog posts every week. Articles cover concepts in high detail so I would honestly prefer you to skim over the article.