Different acids differ in their ability to donate H+. Stronger acids, such as HCl, react almost completely with water, whereas weaker acids, such as acetic acid (CH3CO2H), react only slightly. The exact strength of a given acid HA in water…
Perhaps the most important of all concepts related to electronegativity and polarity is that of acidity and basicity. We’ll soon see, in fact, that the acid–base behavior of organic molecules explains much of their chemistry. You may recall from a course in general chemistry…
Look back at the resonance forms of the acetate ion and the acetone anion shown in the previous section. The pattern seen there is a common one that leads to a useful technique for drawing resonance forms. In general, any…
When first dealing with resonance forms, it’s useful to have a set of guidelines that describe how to draw and interpret them. The following rules should be helpful: RULE 1Individual resonance forms are imaginary, not real. The real structure is…
Most substances can be represented unambiguously by the Kekulé line-bond structures we’ve been using up to this point, but an interesting problem sometimes arises. Look at the acetate ion, for instance. When we draw a line-bond structure for acetate, we…
Closely related to the ideas of bond polarity and dipole moment is the assignment of formal charges to specific atoms within a molecule, particularly atoms that have an apparently “abnormal” number of bonds. Look at dimethyl sulfoxide (CH3SOCH3), for instance, a solvent…
Just as individual bonds are often polar, molecules as a whole are often polar as well. Molecular polarity results from the vector summation of all individual bond polarities and lone-pair contributions in the molecule. As a practical matter, strongly polar…
Figure 2.1 The opium poppy is the source of morphine, one of the first “vegetable alkali,” or alkaloids, to be isolated. (credit: modification of work “Papaver somniferum” by Liz West/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) Chapter Contents 2.1 Polar Covalent Bonds and Electronegativity 2.2 Polar Covalent Bonds and…
Occurrence, Preparation, and Properties of Transition Metals and Their Compounds The transition metals are elements with partially filled d orbitals, located in the d-block of the periodic table. The reactivity of the transition elements varies widely from very active metals such as scandium…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The behavior of coordination compounds cannot be adequately explained by the same theories used for main group element chemistry. The observed geometries of coordination complexes are not…