Spectra Revision

Overview of IR Spectra:

Answering a typical Assessment Task:

Polyamides

The amide bond can sometimes be found in polymers, such as nylon.

Did you know that nylon gets its name from the two cities where it was jointly invented?

Acyl Chlorides

These are wonderful compounds to make as precursors for other organic compounds. We had two challenges today:

1. Explore the preparation and reactions of acyl chlorides. Why are acyl chlorides such useful organic compounds?
   
2. Esters can be made from acyl chlorides. They can also be made from carboxylic acids. We have to compare and contrast these two methods. Which one is better?
   

Carboxylic Acids

Carboxylic Acids are very useful precursor chemicals, as well as being useful chemicals themselves (e.g. ethanoic acid is a good preservative - vinegar).

Haloalkanes

We do not need to know much more about haloalkanes than what we learned last year. We do need to know how to convert haloalkanes into alkenes, however:

Carbonyl Compounds

We are now directing our own learning. We have two lessons to find out as much as we can about aldehydes and ketones:

One idea was to use the aldehyde (or ketone) hexagon and select another hexagon at random. The work out a method to tell the two organic compounds apart.

Optical Isomerism

The challenge was to make an isomer of butanol which had two possible structures, yet both had the same structural formula:

These are called enantiomers or optical isomers. They are very interesting compounds and important in nature. However, the only physical property that can be used to tell them apart is their ability to rotate plane-polarised light - one isomer rotates it clockwise, while the other rotates it anti-clockwise.