Organic Chemistry 101 Study Guide

Most content that follows was taken from the various forgotten sources on the internet, most of which was probably wikipedia

Organic Compound: any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon.

Carbon has the ability to form very long chains of interconnecting C-C bonds. This property is called catenation. Carbon-carbon bonds are strong, and stable. This property allows carbon to form an almost infinite number of compounds; in fact, there are more known carbon-containing compounds than all the compounds of the other chemical elements combined except those of hydrogen (because almost all organic compounds contain hydrogen too).

In organic chemistry, there are a few basic structural shapes that you will encounter. They are open chains and rings. There are also two types of chains, a straight chain, and a branched chain. In a straight chain, one carbon atom holds no more than two other carbon atoms. As its name implies, the straight chain is a straight link of carbon, sometimes oxygen or nitrogen, atoms, in structural formula that is. Because of twisting and contouring, they chain may have several conformations. Branched chains have at least one carbon holding more than two other carbon atoms. It will, as its name implies, have branches of other chains coming off another chain. Branching is one of the reasons why there are so many isomers for each compound.

Straight Chain

Branched Chain

Rings (or cyclic compounds) are composed of rings of carbon and sometimes oxygen or nitrogen.

Benzene Ring

aldehyde: organic compound containing a carbon atom double bonded to Oxygen and that same carbon atom bonded to Hydrogen (H-C=O)

ketone: organic compound with the structure RC(=O)R’, where R and R’ can be a variety of atoms and groups of atoms

diketone: A diketone is a molecule containing two ketone groups.

Aldehydes and ketones play an important role in the chemistry of carbohydrates. The term carbohydrate literally means a “hydrate” of carbon, and was introduced to describe a family of compounds with the empirical formula CH2O. Glucose and fructose, for example, are carbohydrates with the formula C6H12O6. These sugars differ in the location of the C=O double bond on the six-carbon chain, as shown in the figure below. Glucose is an aldehyde; fructose is a ketone.

carboxylic acid: organic acids characterized by the presence of at least one carboxyl group (–COOH).

organic acid: an organic compound with acidic properties. The most common organic acids are the carboxylic acids, whose acidity is associated with their carboxyl group –COOH. Sulfonic acids, containing the group –SO2OH, are relatively stronger acids. Alcohols, with –OH, can act as acids but they are usually very weak.

hydrocarbon: organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon.

aromatic hydrocarbon group: hydrocarbon with alternating double and single bonds between carbon atoms.

isomer: are compounds with the same molecular formula but different structural formulas.

metabolic pathways: series of chemical reactions occurring within a cell.

anabolism: set of metabolic pathways that construct molecules from smaller units.

catabolism: set of metabolic pathways that break down molecules into smaller units and release energy.

synthesis: an enzyme-catalyzed process in cells of living organisms by which substrates are converted to more complex products.

synthase: an enzyme that catalyses a synthesis process.

decarboxylation: a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide (CO2).

alcohol: is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms.