Functional Group Preparations

Discussion: Synthesis of molecules is a fundamental aspect of organic chemistry.  Synthesis allows the preparation of an infinite range of compounds for just about any conceivable use, such as a new drug to combat cancer or a food additive to boost nutritional value.  Interconversion of functional groups is among the most common of organic synthesis operations.  It is useful, therefore, for the student of organic chemistry to appreciate the reactions that are used to convert one functional group into another.  An appreciation of organic reactions also allows you to see patterns in reactivity and reaction mechanisms.  The predictive power of these patterns is central to discovery of new reactions, or prediction of reactivity in a given situation, such as a drug interacting with an enzyme.  These patterns also provide a framework for your study of organic reactions and reactivity.  If you understand the reactions of a functional group, then you can make useful predictions about other reactions of the same functional group, or of the reactions of a similar functional group.

You should not memorize this table of functional group preparations, but rather use them as a starting point to discover and explore reactivity patterns among various functional groups.

This table is a list of the reactions used to prepare various functional groups as presented in Organic Chemistry , Third Edition by Brown and Foote.  It is not a complete list of all known organic reactions.
 
 

Table of Functional Group Preparations
Click on the name of a functional group to see how it is prepared.

Acetal	Ammonium Salt	Hemiacetal
Acid Chloride	Aryl Halide	Imine
Alcohol	Carboxylic Acid	b -Ketoester
Aldehyde	Disulfide	Ketone
Alkane  Absence of all other              functional groups	Epoxide	Nitro
Alkene	Ester	Sulfide
Alkoxide	Ether	Sulfonic Acid
Amide	Glycol	Sulfonium Salt
Amine	Haloalkane	a,b -Unsaturated Aldehyde or Ketone

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