As we construct more complex organic molecules, it can start to feel like decrypting a complex code. Organic synthesis takes simple starting materials, and turns them into complex structures, and reverse engineering can help us figure...

An introduction to retrosynthetic analysis.

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...

Wanna make an amide out of a ketone? Try the Schmidt reaction! It's got azides, it's got really neat concerted rearrangements, it's got diazoiminium intermediates, it has it all! Let's check out the mechanism, implications, and...

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!)

We've got a starting material, and we are subjecting it to a series of three reaction conditions. What do we get? See if you can find out!

We've got starting material and we've got a target molecule, and we've gotta figure out how to make the transformation in just two steps. Sift through that bag of synthetic tricks!

We've got a terminal alkyne, and we're gonna do some stuff to it. What will we get? What's that Grignard reagent gonna do? Be careful!

We are starting with benzene, we do four reactions, and what do we get? See if you can get the right answer!

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.

Need some organic chemistry practice? Here's a tricky synthesis to try!

We've got an alkene starting material, and we are trying to get a specific alcohol. How can we do it in three steps? Give it a shot!

We've got two vicinal dihalides with different stereochemistry, and we want to make them. How can we do this? Think about the reactions you know and give it a try!

Need some organic chemistry practice? Here's a tricky synthesis to try!

We've got a target molecule to synthesize, and we have to start from benzene and other reagents of three carbons or less. How are we gonna do this? Think about the reactions you know, especially some electrophilic aromatic substitution,...

Need some organic chemistry practice? Here's a tricky synthesis to try!

Need some organic chemistry practice? Here's a tricky synthesis to try!

It's now time to dig into some olefination reactions, which generate olefins, or alkenes. The first is the McMurry reaction. It involves some rather mysterious titanium chemistry, via a mechanism that is not fully understood. Let's check...

We just learned about the Passerini reaction, and now it's time to learn a similar one, the Ugi reaction. This is another multi-component reaction that is excellent for generating chemical libraries. To the components of the Passerini...

Carbon-carbon bond formation is extremely important in organic synthesis, and the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Akira Suzuki (and Richard Heck and Ei-ichi Negishi) for his work on the reaction that bears his name. This...