Five years back, I speculated about the mechanism of the epoxidation of ethene by a peracid, concluding that kinetic isotope effects provided interesting evidence that this mechanism is highly asynchronous and involves a so-called “hidden intermediate”. Here I revisit this reaction in which a small change is applied to the atoms involved.
Posts Tagged ‘pericyclic reaction’
Epoxidation of ethene: a new substituent twist.
Friday, December 21st, 2018Tags:Chemical kinetics, chemical reaction, Chemistry, Deuterium, Isotope effect, Kinetic isotope effect, Natural sciences, Organic chemistry, overall activation energy, pericyclic reaction, Physical organic chemistry, Physical sciences, potential energy surface, Rearrangement reactions
Posted in Interesting chemistry | 5 Comments »
Combichem: an introductory example of the complexity of chemistry
Sunday, December 19th, 2010Chemistry gets complex very rapidly. Consider the formula CH3NO as the topic for a tutorial in introductory chemistry. I challenge my group (of about 8 students) to draw as many different molecules as they can using exactly those atoms. I imply that perhaps each of them might find a different structure; this normally brings disbelieving expressions to their faces.
Tags:/RT, anomeric effects, arrow pushing, configurational isomer, conformational somer, double bond equivalent, electron octet, entwined systems, free energy barrier, Jan Jensen, optical isomerism, pericyclic reaction, resonance isomer, stereochemical, stereoelectronic, tautomers
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