2,2-Dimethoxypropane 2026-10-20
2,2-Dimethoxypropane is the dimethyl acetal of acetone. Reaction with a diol under acid catalysis can form an acetonide and two methanol molecules.
Acetone Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Acetone is the ketone , with a carbonyl group between two methyl groups. Its polar carbonyl makes it a useful solvent and an electrophilic center for nucleophilic addition.
Hydrogens on its adjacent methyl groups can be removed to form an enolate. Thus one molecule illustrates both carbonyl electrophilicity and the carbon acidity used in carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions.
Acetone iodination rate-law experiment 2026-10-18
Acetone reacts with iodine to form iodoacetone, iodide, and a hydrogen ion:In water, denotes a solvated hydrogen ion; added hydrochloric acid provides acidic conditions.
Moorpark College's protocol mixes acetone, hydrochloric acid and water from burets in matched test tubes; pipet in iodine, swirl and time colour loss against white paper. Use water, then reacted solution, as references. Duplicate each mixture; keep total volume and run temperatures within .[ref]
Experiment 4: Chemical Kinetics: The Iodination of Acetone. Chemistry M01B Laboratory Manual, version 4.0 by Moorpark College Department of Chemistry; Version 4.0, Experiment 4, printed pp. 17–18: Procedure and Table 1
The stock dilutions give , , and . B and C separately double acetone and acid; D halves iodine. The manual supplies no measured times; it states zero partial order of reaction in iodine and asks students to determine the other exponents.[ref]
The endpoint measurement is a time to an operational colour threshold, not direct observation of a reaction intermediate. If the iodine disappearance rate is approximately constant until that endpoint, . Halving at fixed other concentrations then approximately halves without changing . A longer or shorter endpoint time alone is not a comparison of reaction rates unless the starting concentration is included. For an observed power-form rate law, doubling only acetone gives a rate ratio and hence ; doubling only acid similarly estimates its own partial order of reaction. Those are inference formulas, not asserted experimental results.
A useful proposed reaction mechanism would explain how iodine is consumed after an earlier transformation sets the throughput, making the observed reaction rate insensitive to iodine over a tested range. The observed zero exponent would contradict treating this net chemical equation as a single elementary reaction with directional rate law . It would not uniquely prove which reaction intermediate or earlier step is involved. Independently detecting a candidate reaction intermediate would provide another kind of evidence.
The excess-reactant approximation has an explicit scale: the baseline iodine inventory is only of the initial acetone inventory, and its net hydrogen ion production is of the initial acid inventory, assuming only the stated one-to-one chemical reaction. These are calculated bounds on composition change, not measured reaction orders. Mixing delay, a subjective colour threshold, and temperature drift limit the inference. Repeats and a fixed viewing geometry help; a calibrated absorbance trace could test linearity during conversion instead of relying on an endpoint alone. That extension would require a reference blank and a justified Beer-Lambert law calibration, rather than treating visible colour as an exact concentration. A zero-order reaction approximation in iodine must fail at depletion; it cannot imply consumption after no iodine remains.
Acetonide 2026-10-20
Carbon acid Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-11-05
A carbon acid is a chemical acid that loses a proton from a carbon-hydrogen bond, producing a carbanion or a resonance-stabilized related species. The name refers to the atom bearing the acidic hydrogen, not to every compound containing carbon.
For example, deprotonation of acetone next to its carbonyl group gives an enolate. Delocalization of the negative charge makes this hydrogen much more acidic than an ordinary alkane hydrogen. Carbon acidity therefore explains how carbon nucleophiles arise in reactions such as the aldol reaction, while the actual acid strength depends strongly on substituents and solvent.
Ideal-solution vapor-liquid equilibrium test 2026-10-18
The Mixture measurements and the Gibbs-Duhem constraint article describes the inspected acetone–chloroform preparation, apparatus, paired readouts, controls and sampling limits.[ref]
Liquid-Vapor Equilibrium of a Binary System by James M. McCormick. Procedure, Figure 1, Tables 1–2: apparatus, calibration, pure-component control, successive additions and paired sampling
That existing apparatus account supplies the experimental controls and limitations. Its refractive index calibration yields mass fractions, which must be converted to mole fractions. For a measured component-A mass fraction and component molar masses ,Apply this conversion separately to the flask sample and to completely condensed vapor to obtain and . Comparing with tests Raoult's law at the measured temperature; using the changing temperature at each composition is essential. The chosen A/B values above are unrelated to the protocol's substances.
The more general diagnostic, retaining an ideal gas vapor and negligible pure-liquid pressure correction, isThis follows by replacing with in the chemical potential subtraction used for Raoult's law. A reproducible discrepancy from can expose failure of the ideal solution approximation, but interpreting it requires checking measurement uncertainty, representative paired sampling and the ideal gas approximation. Apparent agreement within uncertainty supports an approximation over the tested conditions; it cannot establish exact ideality at every composition.
Positive or negative deviations of component partial pressures require activity coefficients different from one under these assumptions. An azeotrope is also absent from the chosen unequal-vapor pressure model: the explicit inequality in ideal binary vapor composition gives throughout . An interior equality would require ; in that degenerate case every composition has , rather than an isolated enrichment reversal. Neither an azeotrope nor liquid phase separation should be inferred from the ideal curves.
A concrete motivating experiment is the acetone–chloroform mixture in Truman State University's Liquid-Vapor Equilibrium of a Binary System, Procedure and Figure 1. A two-neck flask feeds a distillation head with a water-cooled laboratory condenser, condensate sampling arm and temperature probe. Starting with one pure liquid, the procedure adds the other component successively and waits for stable temperature with returning condensate. Small paired samples from the flask and condensate are read on an Abbé refractometer; a tabulated refractive index–composition relation gives the two compositions. Controls include three-point thermometer calibration, corrected atmospheric pressure readings, and agreement of the initial pure-liquid and condensate refractive indices with the reference value. Small withdrawals and little retained condensate reduce disturbance of composition. Sample evaporation can bias the readout. The inferred paired mole fractions, temperature and pressure describe vapor-liquid equilibrium, subject to the conversion from mass fraction to mole fraction and to representative sampling. This teaching protocol reports no measured results of a particular student run.[ref]
How does such a measurement expose activity coefficients? Let and be the mole fractions in the liquid and gas thermodynamic phases, respectively, and let be the pure-component vapor pressure. Assume the gas thermodynamic phase is an ideal gas mixture and neglect the change of the pure-liquid reference chemical potential between its saturation pressure and the experimental pressure. Equality of each component's chemical potential between the two thermodynamic phases then givesThis turns the paired composition readings into estimates of the activity coefficients. The approximation needs refinement when the gas departs appreciably from ideal gas behavior or the neglected liquid pressure effect matters.
The apparatus measures a boiling-composition series in which temperature changes as the mixture changes. Its readings therefore cannot be inserted directly into the fixed-temperature, fixed-pressure activity coefficient constraint. They motivate the more general task: test whether the measured mixture properties can arise from a common Gibbs free energy while accounting for changing state variables. A failure can reveal incompatible property fits or experimental bias; a pass supplies a consistency check, not proof that every reading is correct.
Past exam of the chemistry B course of the University of Cambridge 2023 Paper 1 B5 a iii Solution 2026-10-20
Transfer is favourable when new water–solute interactions compensate the cavity and reorganization costs of accommodating the solute. The Gibbs energy also includes the loss of solute–alkane interactions; it is not simply a count of hydrogen bonds. isobutane cannot compensate those costs with strong directional interactions, explaining its positive transfer Gibbs energy. acetone and both amines can accept hydrogen bonds from water and have favourable electrostatic solvation, making their transfer moderately favourable. isopropylamine can additionally donate to water, consistent with a somewhat greater preference for water than trimethylamine.
acetamide combines a strong carbonyl acceptor with N–H donors and has the most favourable hydration in the group, accounting for its much more negative transfer Gibbs energy. Its pure solid lattice is not an extra sublimation penalty to insert here: the stated process starts from a dilute alkane solution and ends in dilute water, rather than dissolving the pure crystal. The nonmonotonic relationship between hydrogen-bond acceptor parameter and transfer Gibbs energy is expected because donor strength, nonpolar surface, solvent cavity formation, and all other solvation contributions also enter.
For matched standard states, , with the water-to-alkane activity ratio. As an illustrative 298 K calculation, the hydrocarbon value implies , whereas the amide value implies approximately . These are standard-state partition preferences, not absolute aqueous solubilities. amine protonation could introduce an additional pH-dependent contribution to an experimentally measured distribution coefficient, but no such speciation information is supplied and it is not needed for the molecular comparison.
Past exam of the chemistry B course of the University of Cambridge 2023 Paper 1 B5 a ii Solution 2026-10-20
The clearest comparison is between the two amines, which have the same molecular formula and molar mass. isopropylamine can donate N–H hydrogen bonds to neighbouring nitrogen lone pairs; trimethylamine has no N–H donor. The resulting intermolecular association raises the primary amine's boiling point, allowing it to remain liquid at room temperature, whereas trimethylamine is gaseous. Independent phase-change data place their normal boiling points on opposite sides of room temperature.[ref]
NIST Chemistry WebBook, SRD 69. trimethylamine, CAS 75-50-3, and isopropylamine, CAS 75-31-0, phase-change data
acetone has a substantial carbonyl dipole and London dispersion forces sufficient for a room-temperature liquid, even though it cannot build a strong donor–acceptor hydrogen bond network by itself. isobutane has mainly London dispersion forces and a compact shape and remains gaseous. acetamide combines carbonyl acceptors with two N–H donors, allowing an extended, directionally bonded crystal lattice; favourable packing as well as intermolecular association stabilizes its solid state.
These compounds have similar molar masses, so mass alone cannot explain the differences. The hydrogen-bond acceptor parameter also cannot predict the phase on its own: a pure substance needs complementary donors to exploit strong acceptor sites, and freezing additionally depends on crystal packing and entropy. A stronger acceptor does not automatically imply a higher melting point for arbitrary molecules.
Past exam of the chemistry B course of the University of Cambridge 2023 Paper 1 B5 a i Solution 2026-10-20
The acceptor-strength trend is amide oxygen and amine nitrogen strongest, ketone oxygen weaker, hydrocarbon essentially nonaccepting. trimethylamine and isopropylamine each provide a relatively available nitrogen lone pair; adding N–H bonds changes donor ability much more conspicuously than it changes the acceptor ranking in this comparison. Alkyl substitution and solvation modify the precise values, so the matching amine parameters should be read as the stated empirical strengths rather than a universal equality of all amines.
In acetamide, nitrogen lone-pair donation contributes an form contributing to resonance in chemistry, increasing electron density at oxygen and making it a strong hydrogen bond acceptor. The amide acceptor is oxygen, not nitrogen: the nitrogen lone pair is delocalized into the carbonyl. acetone also accepts at oxygen, but lacks this nitrogen-to-carbonyl donation and has the smaller hydrogen-bond acceptor parameter. isobutane has neither a heteroatom lone pair nor a comparable acceptor site; its zero value is consistent with the absence of an ordinary directional hydrogen bond acceptor.
The ordering is allyl chloride 1-chloropropane 2-chloropropane. Iodide is a good nucleophile but a weak base, and polar aprotic solvent acetone favours its SN2 reaction. SN2 reaction and C–Cl cleavage occur in one step; precipitation of sodium chloride can also favour halide exchange without changing the basic steric comparison.
The primary saturated chloride supplies the reference rate. Allyl chloride is also primary, but its neighbouring pi system stabilizes the developing delocalized electronic structure in the substitution transition state. It can therefore react about 64 times faster without requiring a free allylic carbocation. The secondary chloride is sterically crowded at the attacked carbon, making backside approach and the crowded transition state less favourable; its rate is about 0.02 times the primary value. The leaving group and nucleophile are the same in the comparison, so assigning the ordering to different halide leaving groups would be incorrect. If prefactor differences are neglected, at 333 K gives roughly and for the allylic and secondary substrates respectively: modest barrier changes produce large rate ratios.
Disconnect the N–cyclohexyl bond as a late reductive amination of a primary amine with cyclohexanone. Disconnect the exocyclic methylene as a Wittig methylenation of a substituted cyclohexanone. The useful ring precursor is 3-methyl-5-substituted cyclohex-2-en-1-one, accessible by a Robinson annulation. The pendant substituent throughout ring construction should be .
Start with nucleophilic substitution of the supplied bromo ester by cyanide:Reduce the nitrile selectively to the primary amine while retaining the ester, for example by controlled catalytic hydrogenation with Raney nickel in the presence of ammonia, and trap the amine promptly as its Boc carbamate. Avoid heating or concentrating the free amino ester, which can cyclize to a lactam. lithium aluminium hydride would be unsuitable at this stage because it also reduces the ester.
Partial reduction of the protected ester with DIBAL at low temperature gives . The carbon of the original nitrile is now the methylene nearest nitrogen; the original ester carbonyl is the aldehyde carbon. Condense this aldehyde with acetone and dehydrate to .
Now add the enolate of a second acetone molecule in a Michael addition. With , the resulting chain isIntramolecular aldol condensation gives 3-Me-5-R-cyclohex-2-en-1-one. The beta methyl derives from the carbonyl end attacked in the ring closure; the pendant aminoalkyl chain remains at C5. Hydrogenate the ring C=C selectively, retaining the ketone, then methylenate the ketone with preformed . Do the hydrogenation before installing the exocyclic methylene so that it is not hydrogenated away.
Remove Boc under brief mild conditions, checking for acid-induced exocyclic alkene isomerization. reductive amination of the resulting primary amine with cyclohexanone, followed by selective imine reduction, installs the secondary N-cyclohexyl group. Use controlled stoichiometry to suppress tertiary amine formation. The methyl and four-carbon aminoalkyl substituents occupy the required 1,3-related ring positions, with the exocyclic methylene at the former carbonyl. No ring stereochemistry is specified. The target contains eighteen carbons: six ring carbons, one ring methyl, one methylene, four in the linker, and six in the N-cyclohexyl group.
Open the lactone formally at its acyl–oxygen bond, then replace the resulting secondary alcohol by its ketone precursor. With , the useful sequence of retrosynthetic intermediates isDisconnect the last compound as a Michael addition product of the methyl-side enolate of and ethyl methacrylate:The substituted carbon of the methacrylate becomes the methyl-bearing carbon alpha to the lactone carbonyl. The ketone carbon becomes the oxygen-bearing ring carbon. This checks the six-membered ring connectivity.
The required branched methyl ketone itself comes from butan-2-one by ethyl-side aldol addition to acetone, followed by dehydration and selective hydrogenation:Choose and isolate the aldol regioisomer shown. For the subsequent Michael step, use a bulky base at low temperature to favour its less hindered methyl-side kinetic enolate. Reduce the resulting ketone selectively with while retaining the ester, hydrolyse the ester, then acidify and promote intramolecular esterification with water removal. The hydroxy acid closes to the required six-membered lactone. There is no specified stereochemical relationship to enforce, but a stereochemically pure target would require an additional selectivity or resolution step.
Let -dimethylphenyl and -methoxyphenyl. After conversion of the Pd(OAc) precatalyst into an active phosphine–Pd(0) species, oxidative addition of gives . Carbonate-assisted replacement of chloride by the alcohol's alkoxide produces .
In the key beta-carbon elimination, the alkoxide oxygen forms a C=O bond while the bond between its carbinol carbon and cleaves, transferring to palladium. This gives acetone and a diarylpalladium(II) complex, . reductive elimination creates the new biaryl bond and regenerates Pd(0). Thus the tertiary alcohol functions as an aryl donor by carbon–carbon bond cleavage, rather than being incorporated as a carbinol substituent. The overall organic products are the cross-coupled biaryl and acetone. The carbinol carbon has no hydrogen, so ordinary beta-hydride elimination from this alkoxide cannot explain the observed aryl transfer. The bulky electron-rich phosphine helps access the aryl-chloride oxidative addition and the sterically congested biaryl-forming elimination.
acetone first forms a proline enamine by reversible iminium formation and alpha-deprotonation. The enamine attacks the aromatic aldehyde in a hydrogen-bonded arrangement involving the catalyst's carboxylic acid. hydrolysis of the resulting iminium releases the beta-hydroxyketone and regenerates proline. The usual L-proline arrangement gives the secondary alcohol.
The sterically crowded aryl–amide axis is selected at the same bond-forming step: rapid rotation in the aldehyde permits the catalyst to react preferentially with the conformer that puts the smaller carbonyl-oxygen side of the amide towards the approaching aldol transition structure and the bulky diisopropylamino side away. A chair-like enamine–aldehyde model minimizes the interaction of the amide with the catalyst-side axial hydrogen; reversing the amide orientation creates the less favourable diastereomeric transition state. Replacing planar CHO by tetrahedral CH(OH)CHCOMe then raises the rotation barrier and traps the axis. This is a dynamic kinetic resolution, not resolution of two configurationally stable starting atropisomers.
To specify the predicted major axis without relying on a flat bond-line formula, look from the aromatic ipso carbon towards the amide carbonyl carbon. Put the higher-priority aryl path, the trimethylsilyl-bearing ortho side, at nine o'clock. The preferred model puts the carbonyl oxygen at approximately six o'clock and the diisopropylamino group at twelve o'clock. This is using the near-to-far high-priority convention; oxygen outranks nitrogen at the far end. Coupled with the alcohol assignment, the model predicts . The drawing defines the configuration even if an alternative viewing direction is used. The dynamic-resolution mechanism is established by the primary aldol study; the product-axis assignment here is a stereochemical-model prediction for the printed substrate.[ref]
Dynamic kinetic resolution of atropisomeric amides by Vincent Chan and others. Organic Letters 6, pp. 2051–2053: simultaneous alcohol and amide-axis control
The three preparations use different chemistry: diethyl ether from ethanol by acid-catalysed dehydration, carbon disulfide by combination of carbon and sulfur, and chloroform by chlorination and cleavage of a suitable organic starting material. “Ether” here means diethyl ether, not every member of the modern ether class; “bisulphide of carbon” means carbon disulfide.
For diethyl ether, heating ethanol with a suitable proportion of sulfuric acid favours intermolecular dehydration:The historical explanation invokes formation of ethyl hydrogen sulfate and its reaction with a further ethanol molecule, regenerating sulfuric acid. The acid therefore need not be consumed stoichiometrically in the overall balance. The modern mechanism treats a protonated alcohol or related activated species as the substrate for attack by another ethanol molecule.[ref]
18.2 Preparing Ethers. Opening paragraph and reaction mechanism: sulfuric-acid-catalysed formation of symmetrical ethers from primary alcohols
Conditions matter: excessive heating favours formation of Ethylene rather than ether, and strongly oxidizing conditions can give additional products. Condensation of the volatile product, removal of acidic and water-soluble impurities, drying and redistillation separate production from purification. A cold receiver is appropriate to the volatile ether; an open flame near the escaping vapour would be incompatible with its ready flammability.For carbon disulfide, sulfur vapour is brought into contact with sufficiently hot charcoal in a retort:Here records sulfur atoms in the balance, not a claim that the sulfur vapour has only monatomic molecules. The outgoing vapours are cooled and the liquid separated from excess sulfur and other impurities, then purified by distillation. The high-temperature reaction zone and the cooled collecting region have different functions. Carbon disulfide is a volatile, highly flammable solvent; its historical use does not establish harmlessness.[ref]
For chloroform, a historically important route uses ethanol with a slurry containing bleaching powder. Oxidation first supplies acetaldehyde; further chlorination gives chloral, which alkali cleaves to chloroform and formate. An illustrative final step with calcium hydroxide isThe bleaching material supplies oxidizing and chlorinating capacity, while the alkaline conditions permit cleavage. It is misleading to describe the entire operation as one simple substitution directly replacing three hydrogens of intact ethanol. It is also unnecessary to pretend that commercial bleaching powder has a single invariant molecular composition.
Acetone supplies an alternative methyl-carbonyl starting material for the same broad haloform chemistry. In ionic notation a clean idealized balance isThe volatile product is condensed with water-containing material; a chloroform-rich phase is separated, washed appropriately, dried and redistilled. Identity and purity require more than observing a dense lower layer. These operations describe preparation chemistry rather than a specified pharmacopoeial recipe or a claim of suitability for anaesthesia. The historical anaesthetic importance of chloroform does not remove its toxic effects.[ref]
Chloroform: toxicological overview by UKHSA. Acute and delayed toxicity
Thin-layer chromatography 2026-10-18
Thin-layer chromatography spreads a thin chromatographic stationary phase on a supporting plate. A small sample spot starts on a pencil origin line. The lower edge contacts the eluent, whose level must stay below that origin; capillary action draws the chromatographic mobile phase upward. Components exchange with the chromatographic stationary phase as the wet region advances. The leading wet edge is the solvent front. Mark it after removing the plate, before solvent evaporation erases it.[ref]
Thin-Layer Chromatography (University of Pittsburgh Chem0330). Thin-Layer Chromatography, Definition; Solvent; Process Overview, steps 1–4
Juniata College's Science in Motion protocol grinds vegetable tissue with about of acetone, transfers the extract, adds about of hexane, and specifies sampling the upper layer after separation. It spots a silica gel plate with a capillary tube, drying between repeated applications; a reference pigment occupies another lane. A closed jar contains about depth of 70:30 hexane–acetone eluent, below the pencil origin. The plate is removed before the front reaches the top; the front is marked immediately. Spot centres and front are measured from the origin.[ref]
Thin Layer Chromatography of Vegetable Pigments (Juniata College Science in Motion). Thin Layer Chromatography of Vegetable Pigments, pp. 2–3, steps 1–18
The protocol's standard provides a comparison control. It specifies no added water in this extraction and reports no measured plate positions or temperature. Its tabulated pigment values are guidance, not observations from this run.[ref]
Thin Layer Chromatography of Vegetable Pigments (Juniata College Science in Motion). Introduction table; procedure; blank data tables
A useful additional control is an eluent blank, checking contamination. Compare sample and standard on the same plate, and optionally apply both together at a third origin position. Agreement under identical conditions supports a proposed identity but cannot prove it: different substances can migrate together. A second eluent giving different selectivity strengthens the comparison. One spot cannot establish purity, and a missing visible spot can reflect poor detection rather than absence. Overloading, broad spots, or an uneven solvent front also weaken the readout. These are interpretation checks, not extra observations claimed for the protocol.