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

Acid—Base Reactions in Organic Chemistry
7.1 Introduction

The acid—base reactions that will be encountered in organic chemistry will involve extremely strong acids and bases. Since organic compounds consist of mostly carbons and hydrogens, they are typically very weak acids, and as a result, very strong bases are typically required to deprotonate most organic compounds. Some bases that will be encountered in this course are extremely strong, and as a result, water is typically not the solvent of choice for most acid—base reactions, but aprotic solvents such as diethyl ether and tetrahydrofuran (THF) are typically the solvents of choice. An extremely strong base has the capability of explosively abstracting a proton from water if it were used as a solvent for organic acid—base reactions. As a result, extreme care must be exercised in the choice of a solvent for most organic reactions. In this chapter, a more detailed examination of acid—base reactions will be carried out by applying the concepts learned in the previous chapter to analyze a wide range of acid—base reactions and students will be better able to determine appropriate reaction conditions.