Arthur Winter

Chiral molecules usually contain at least one carbon atom with four nonidentical substituents. Such a carbon atom is called a chiral center (or sometimes a stereogenic center), using organic-speak. Any molecule that contains a chiral center will be chiral, with the exception of a meso compound (see below for how to identify these).

When elements combine through chemical reactions, they form compounds. When compounds contain carbon, they’re called organic compounds. The four families of organic compounds with important biological functions areCarbohydratesThese molecules consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a ratio of roughly 1:2:1.

Studying the elements of the periodic table is vital for understanding organic chemistry. So that you don't have to memorize each element, they're grouped together by their properties.

You won't get very far in your study of organic chemistry without the periodic table of elements and an understanding of the common functional groups (or reactive centers) that dictate how most of a compound's chemical reactions occur.Common functional groups in organic chemistryIn organic chemistry, functional groups (or reactive centers) are small structural units within molecules that dictate how most of the compound’s chemical reactions occur.

Get a firm grasp on organic chemistry. Successfully studying organic chemistry means getting to know the elements of the periodic table and the important facts that highlight the fundamentals of organic chemistry. This Cheat Sheet shows it all.The basics of organic chemistryWhen you explore biology, you’ll find that many processes are constantly occurring in living organisms.

The first step in drawing the most stable conformation of cyclohexane is to determine — based on whether the substituents are cis or trans to one another, and based on where they're located on the ring — what the choices of axial and equatorial positions are for the substituents. A handy way of determining the substitution alternatives is to use the Haworth projection, as shown here.

Alkanes are not limited to staying in a line — they can have structures that branch. When naming a branched alkane, your first step is to find and number the longest chain. After you number the parent chain, if you want to name the branched alkane, you need to determine the names of all the substituents that stick off of the parent chain, and then order the substituents alphabetically in front of the parent chain.

Whether through alpha cleavage or loss of a water molecule, molecular fragmentation in a mass spectrometer tends to follow certain patterns. You can often predict what peaks will be observed in the mass spectrum simply by looking at a molecule's structure and seeing which pieces would be easy to break off to make stable cations.