Insects can communicate with each other about all kinds of things, but instead of using words, they use… you guessed it! Organic Chemistry! Insects can send signals to each other by secreting compounds, and one such compound used by...

Organic chemistry is a great workout for your brain, and to keep its energy up, your brain needs glucose. To maintain blood glucose levels, our bodies go through a process called gluconeogenesis, which involves the important type of...

We’ve spent the last few episodes talking about substitution reactions, but now it’s time to talk about a related type of reaction: elimination reactions! Elimination reactions are super important because they are the main way we can...

You may know that cows produce methane, which is a big concern when it comes to global heating, but did you know that organic chemistry provides a potential solution to this problem? Feeding cows small amounts of red seaweed can greatly...

In a neutralization reaction (or acid-base reaction) a proton is transferred from the Brinsted--Lowry acid to the Brinsted--Lowry base. Water is amphoteric and so it can serve as either an acid or a base in a neutralization reaction. ...

Esters have a wide range of uses, from giving perfumes and colognes their fragrances, to preventing diseases like scurvy. Vitamin C, that scurvy preventing antioxidant, is derived from carboxylic acids, a class of organic compounds we’ve...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how acid-base chemistry can be understood in terms of equilibrium. Water is present in all acid-base chemistry and is amphoteric in nature. The Ka and Kb values can be used to determine the strength...

We just learned about some innovations regarding enantioselective hydrogenation of alkenes which utilize homogeneous catalysis and chiral catalysts. Can we employ the same approach to hydrogenate other functional groups? What about...

Once again, we will be interested in learning about reactions that break carbon-carbon bonds, as this will allow us to perform necessary transformations on substrates. The haloform reaction is one such reaction, and it is commonly used...

Introducing aldol condensation and enolate chemistry in general.

An introduction to protecting groups.

How can we reduce a ketone or aldehyde all the way to the alkane? We already learn one way, Clemmensen reduction. But what if we don't have any amalgamated zinc handy, you ask? Well there's an older way called Wolff-Kishner reduction....

Buffers: ICE Problem With Henderson-Hasselbalch Equation

How can we go from one type of alkene to another? In three steps precisely? Use the reactions you know and figure it out! (Hint: Think about addition reactions, elimination reactions, and hydrogenations!)

Practice REAL problems from actual past IIT/JEE exams with Professor Dave!

Enolate chemistry is tricky business! You might get more products than you think. Give this one a shot.

This time we have a starting material, and we are gonna do just two reactions. But it's a little tricky! See if you can figure it out.

I know you guys are dying for more practice choosing between SN1/SN2/E1/E2 mechanisms, so hopefully this one helps a little. Make sure to look at all the factors we talked about in my tutorial on this topic!

When looking at a substrate and a base/nucleophile, how do we know which one of the basic mechanisms will occur? Let's get some tips in here!

Titration Curves: A Conceptual Math-based Approach

Introducing Claisen condensation and Dieckmann condensation.

An overview of alkyne synthesis via double dehydrohalogenation.

It explains the ionisation of acids and bases. It explains the term conjugate acids and bases. It derives the expression to calculate ionic product of water.

We know about acids and bases, and we know about acid-base reactions, so what is a neutralization reaction?