Explore every episode of the podcast Learning Organic Chemistry with Sibi

Why neutral molecules like water can act as powerful nucleophiles in organic chemistry mechanisms. In this explainer, we break down what makes a nucleophile work and why a negative charge isn't required for a molecule to donate electrons. This episode walks through the exact mechanics behind how neutral molecules attack electrophiles.

Slides, transcript and the tutorials this episode is based on

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

A 10-minute audio lesson with slides on resonance, from Kekulé's benzene to resonance structures, the resonance hybrid and the 145 kJ/mol resonance energy of benzene.

Slides, transcript and the tutorials this episode is based on

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

How covalent bonds form, the theories from Dalton to Pauling, and how bond order sets bond strength and length. A 17-minute audio lesson with slides.

Slides, transcript and the tutorials this episode is based on

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

In this CurlyArrows 'Learn Chemistry with Sibi' Podcast, I covers the four common mistakes a beginner in chemistry makes while drawing a Hydrogen bond.
1) Number One – Choosing the Wrong Atoms
2) Number Two – Choosing the Wrong Donors and Acceptors
3) Number Three - Not Maintaining the Hydrogen Bond Angle
4) Number Four - Place incorrectly the Dipoles

Reference Article 

This excerpt is part of the chapter Intermolecular Forces, part of the Organic Chemistry Fundamentals study program. 
 

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide - Organic Chemistry Fundamentals covering 14 fundamental chapters required to master organic chemistry reactions. The chapters are highly structured, carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

In this 2-minute podcast on Hydrogen Bonding on CurlyArrows 'Learning Chemistry with Sibi', we will learn how this weak-but-mighty force works, and why it only happens with H attached to O, N, or F. Hydrogen bonding is why water is a liquid, and our DNA stays twisted in that perfect double helix.

Reference Article 

This excerpt is part of the chapter Intermolecular Forces, part of the Organic Chemistry Fundamentals study program. 

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide - Organic Chemistry Fundamentals covering 14 fundamental chapters required to master organic chemistry reactions. The chapters are highly structured, carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

 

In this podcast, we will look at how the distribution of two electrons between two atoms in a covalent bond gives rise to a bond type based on polarity, creating two variants: polar and nonpolar covalent bonds. These covalent bond types are essential in organic chemistry, as they are responsible for various molecular interactions, solubility, and transformations. 

This excerpt is part of the chapter Bonding in Atoms, part of the Organic Chemistry Fundamentals study program. 

Original Article

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide - Organic Chemistry Fundamentals covering 14 fundamental chapters required to master organic chemistry reactions. The chapters are highly structured, carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

In this audio, we will cover the basic vocabulary related to acids, Lewis, Bronsted-Lowry, and Arrhenius. We will also see how the strength of an acid is measured using Ka values, and try to understand what a conjugate acid-base pair is. We will also discuss polarizability and the hard-soft acid-base concept.

Here is the link to the article 

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide - Organic Chemistry Fundamentals covering 14 fundamental chapters required to master organic chemistry reactions. The chapters are highly structured, carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

The world of the atoms can seem strange and counterintuitive, governed by probability. Still, we can't help but see parallels when we try to grasp their world through the lens of our own. In the language of chemistry, lone pairs are an atom's valence shell electrons that took part in hybridization but evaded the covalent bond formation with other atoms. 

Lone pair is covered in detail in the chapter Fundamentals of Organic Reactions where we discuss various bond formation theories and other covalent bond properties.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Take the Quiz!

Imagine a single atom responsible for every organic and a few inorganic elements you see on Earth! Diamonds, methane, and even the molecules in your body. That’s sp³ carbon for you!

sp3 Carbon is covered in detail in the chapter Covalent Bond where we discuss various key players controlling the outcome of organic chemistry reactions.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Common names were the earliest attempts to identify compounds, which were later followed by a systematic, rule-based IUPAC nomenclature system. Prefixes like n-, iso-, neo-, sec-, and tert- are part of those retained common names that are sometimes used to identify and distinguish between branched and unbranched structures.  

Complete Comparison 

Organic Chemistry Fundamentals Course identifies 14 early concepts required to master organic chemistry reactions comprising of 14 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters. 

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Single bonds have an absolute privilege and exclusivity to show bond rotations, a prime reason behind various conformations in organic chemistry. Conformations are various interconvertible arrangements, or shapes molecules adopt due to their flexibility to undergo bond rotations. The molecules' identity remain the same throughout these rotations.

Conformational isomers are covered extensively under the branch of stereochemistry that considers molecular shapes and studies their reactions. 

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Around the 1780s, chemists began classifying compounds based on their source. In those days, any compound obtained directly or indirectly from living things like plants or animals was called an organic compound. With the downfall of the Vital Force Theory, the term organic underwent changes. Listen to what changes occurred after 1780, which put the spotlight entirely on a few elements from the periodic table that are still constantly changing our lives and organic chemistry.

Read the Comparison

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Functional groups provide a mechanism to enable molecular transformations like - connecting two molecules, rearranging a group of atoms in a molecule, replacing one group of atoms with the other, or even removing unwanted atoms. In organic chemistry, these changes occur in the form of reactions- addition (connect), rearrangement (rearrange), substitution (replace), and elimination (remove).

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Two molecules having the same molecular formula may be believed to look alike and related, but they aren't. The expanded structures of these molecules will reveal the truth - they differ in how the atoms are connected, making them structural isomers of each other. These variations are classified into six subtypes (chain, position, functional, tautomerism, metamerism, and ring-chain) and are covered in detail in the chapter 'Structural Isomerism' on curlyarrows.com.

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Representations have existed since the dawn of human civilization. In chemistry, we often use shortened and elaborate representations, using wedges, dots, rings, and chains. These symbols form the new language of chemistry and are covered in detail in the chapter 'Drawing Organic Structures' on curlyarrows.com.

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Knowledge of common reaction types in organic chemistry will help identify, predict, and design reactions. CurlyArrows has categorized common molecular transformations into six reaction subtypes- addition, elimination, substitution, rearrangement, oxidation-reduction, and decomposition. It also briefly covers the three main mechanisms by which such changes occur.

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

The chapter Electronic Displacements in a Covalent Bond on curlyarrows.com tries to cover in-depth all the electron-shifting effects that drive chemical reactions. The common ones are Electronegativity, Inductive, Resonance, and Hyperconjugative effects. 

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Organic compounds form all earthly life, so essentially, covalent bonds determine life per se. The chapter elaborately covers popular theories explaining the bond formation, molecular shapes, and covalent bond properties in the book "Introductory Organic Chemistry."

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters. 

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

The chapter Bonding in Atoms teaches about the two main types of bonds that atoms form, namely ionic and covalent. Another crucial bonding type, the metallic bonding is also covered in brief.

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

The chapter on the atom, part of the introductory organic chemistry course, briefly covers the study of an atom and its constituents, mainly the electrons. Several chapters discuss their position and occupancy in various atomic levels -s, p, d, and f. An atom's electrons are taught to rearrange into two sets- reactive valence electrons and inert core electrons along with the steps to determine them using group and atomic number.

Preview the chapter

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Comparison is based on nature and identifying a bond type, the type of atoms (and molecules) involved, their difference in conductivity, bond energy, and physical properties. 

Side-by-side comparison - Difference between Ionic, Covalent, Metallic, and Vander Waal Forces

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It comprises 13 carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive chapters.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

The rearrangement reactions are of three types, depending on the number of electrons the migrating atom or group carries. It is nucleophilic or anionotropic (migration with two bond electrons), free-radical (migration with one bond electron), and electrophilic or cationotropic (migration with zero bond electrons) rearrangements.

Rearrangement Reactions in Organic Chemistry

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide - Introductory Organic Chemistry, consisting of 13 carefully crafted chapters. It is simplified, illustrative, and descriptive, serving as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Comparison is based on how bond pair, lone pair, and free radicals are formed, their appearance, stability, and how they react in chemical reactions.

Read the Difference Between Bond Pair, Lone Pair, and Free Radicals

CurlyArrows has created a beginner's guide- Introductory Organic Chemistry as a prerequisite to organic chemistry reactions. It consists of 13 chapters that are carefully crafted, simplified, illustrative, and descriptive.

Subscribe to Introductory Organic Chemistry

Hello, Welcome to CurlyArrows Learn Chemistry with Sibi. 

Functional groups are vital to molecular transformations without which there would be no chemical reactions or even organic chemistry. 

In today’s episode I will cover what are Functional Groups and how they are important in organic chemistry.

The functional group is a group of one to four atoms responsible for bringing changes in an organic molecule. These changes occur when the functional group part of the molecule participates in chemical reactions, whereas the rest of the molecule remains largely inert. So, the functional group is responsible for molecular reactivity and provides them with a typical character. 
 

Hello, Welcome to CurlyArrows Learn Chemistry with Sibi. 

A common bond in organic chemistry is the covalent bond. So naturally, understanding the formation of the covalent bond and its reactions becomes crucial because any change in the covalent bond can only occur by bond breaking and making to create newer, improved molecules and future products.

In today's episode, I will answer 

How does a covalent bond break? 

Did you know that, back in the 1900s, it was believed that a hook and a loop type of closure was the covalent bond that was responsible for holding atoms in a molecule? Interesting, right? Later, this hook-and-loop idea was discarded when G.N. Lewis, in 1916, proposed that two atoms are held in a covalent bond by two electrons. This theory is still relevant today. 

So, any chemical reactions and molecular transformations must happen by breaking or making of this two-electron bond.

Related Chapter - Covalent Bond

Hello, Welcome to CurlyArrows Learn Chemistry with Sibi. In today's episode, I will answer 

How does an atom become negatively charged?

Before I begin to answer this question, we must know one basic thing about an atom and that is, an atom is made of three main components- protons, neutrons, and electrons.

The charge for an atom can come from two sources: positively charged protons in its nucleus and negatively charged electrons outside the nucleus. So, the atom is considered neutral when there is a balance between the positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. Like +1 and -1 give you a zero.

Related Chapter - Atom

"Welcome to CurlyArrows’ Learn Chemistry with Sibi. In today’s episode, I have a question from a student who asks,

What determines reaction in Organic Chemistry?

When I explain the fundamentals of Organic Chemistry in my course, students often ask me if the nucleus is involved in the reaction. The answer is No. In organic chemical reactions and other bonding reactions, the crucial involvement is of the electrons.

Related Chapter - Atom