Organic Chemistry Essentials
Ever wondered how plastics are made or why ethanol burns so well? Organic chemistry is all about carbon-based compounds that form the building blocks of everything from fuels to medicines. You'll find these molecules everywhere in daily life.
Alcohols like ethanol have the functional group -OH and follow the formula C<sub>n</sub>H<sub>2n+1</sub>OH. They're flammable, soluble in water, and can be oxidised to form carboxylic acids. Ethanol is particularly important - it's used in alcoholic drinks, as biofuel, and as a chemical feedstock for making other compounds.
Alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons that get more viscous and less flammable as their chain length increases. Through cracking (thermal decomposition), we can break long alkanes into shorter, more useful alkanes and alkenes. This process uses either steam cracking or catalytic cracking with aluminium oxide.
Addition polymers form when alkene monomers join together after their double bonds split. Meanwhile, condensation polymers like polyesters form when monomers with at least two functional groups join, producing water as a byproduct.
Key Tip: Remember that alkenes are more reactive than alkanes because of their double bonds - they'll turn bromine water from orange to colourless!
