Organic Chemistry: Concepts and Applications - Headley Allan D. 2020

An Overview of the Reactions of Organic Chemistry
6.1 Introduction

Throughout our course in organic chemistry, some of the reactions studied in your general chemistry course, along with some new types of reactions, will be covered. There are numerous reactions that organic molecules undergo, but these reactions can be divided into a few general reaction categories: (i) acid—base, (ii) addition, (iii) reduction, (iv) oxidation, (v) elimination, (vi) substitution (vii) pericyclic, and (viii) catalytic coupling reactions. If the fundamental concepts of these reaction types are understood, it will be easier to recognize these types of reactions in later chapters and students will be able to predict the outcomes of a wide cross section of organic reactions. With this approach of fully understanding concepts and their applications, students are better able to solve problems instead of having to rely on memorization to solve the various problems that will be encountered throughout the course. In this chapter, a brief examination of the underlying concepts of these reaction types will be carried out so that when more complex reactions are encountered, students will be better able to appreciate the versatility of organic reactions and to use the knowledge gained to predict expected and unexpected outcomes of reactions. The different categories of reactions that will be covered in this course will involve the functional groups covered in Chapters 3 and 4. In this chapter, a brief overview of basic concepts of these reaction types and their applications will be covered. In addition, specific features of these reaction types will be easily recognized, and students will be able to apply basic concepts to predict possible products and reactants that these reactions undergo. In the remaining chapters of the book, more specific details and applications of various reactions will be studied.