Organic Chemistry for Engineers

What you'll learn

• Draw Lewis structures with correct formal charges, assign hybridization and geometry, and relate bond polarity and intermolecular forces to boiling points and solubility.
• Read and draw condensed and skeletal structures, calculate degrees of unsaturation, recognize functional groups, and name organic compounds by IUPAC rules and common industrial names.
• Describe the properties and conformations of alkanes and cycloalkanes, including staggered and eclipsed forms, ring strain and the cyclohexane chair.
• Explain the structure of alkenes and alkynes, predict products of electrophilic additions using Markovnikov's rule, and relate unsaturation in oils to the iodine value.
• Apply Hückel's rule to identify aromatic compounds, explain aromatic stability, and predict the rate and position of electrophilic aromatic substitution.
• Identify stereocentres, assign R and S configurations, distinguish enantiomers from diastereomers, and calculate enantiomeric excess from optical rotation.
• Predict whether alkyl halides and alcohols react by SN1, SN2, E1 or E2, and describe the properties, oxidation and hazards of alcohols and ethers.
• Explain nucleophilic addition and nucleophilic acyl substitution of carbonyl compounds, and calculate equilibrium conversions for esterification and reactant needs for transesterification.
• Classify amines, relate their basicity to structure, and apply the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation to extraction and amine scrubbing of carbon dioxide.
• Interpret reaction energy diagrams, rate laws and the Arrhenius equation, and explain how catalysts and temperature affect rate and selectivity.
• Distinguish chain-growth and step-growth polymerization, apply the Carothers equation, and calculate number- and weight-average molar masses and dispersity.
• Evaluate chemical routes using atom economy, E-factor and green chemistry principles, and screen exothermic reactions for runaway potential using the adiabatic temperature rise.