I have trouble understanding hydrogen/carbon groups environments.
I can identifying them, I just seem to get tripped up on whether different hydrogens are part of the same group.
My common mistake is believing that two carbon environments are part of the same environment, when they are in reality different.

For carbon/hydrogen sections to be a part of the same environment does the molecule HAVE to be symmetrical?

    Will

    If there is a H-environment identical to another in the molecule, then yes it's symmetrical. One hack I learned in uni for identifying whether or not 2 given environments are chemically equivalent is to pretend to cut off the C atom the H-environment is attached to from the rest of the molecule. You repeat it for the other environment (with a separate structure) and then you compare if the rest of the molecule is identical in both cases. If it is, then these 2 environments are equivalent (will post a visual example)

    • God likes this.

    There done, the squiggly line is just the convention we use in uni organic chem to represent a removed or arbitrary fragment.
    3-pentanone example

      Hi Billzene!

      Quick question:
      For the substitution reaction: Haloalkane + H2O(g) → Alcohol: NaOH / OH-

      Is water a gas? Or a liquid?

      Cheers!

      Btw: Absolutely love that method for h-environments! Maybe you should be called god, lol....

        God
        H2O isn't involved in the reaction converting haloalkanes to alcohols cuz it's uncharged and therefore a weak nucleophile. Unless you have a suitable catalyst, this reaction won't happen at a significant rate, that's why VCAA expects NaOH or KOH or OH-. You need OH- since converting a primary haloalkane into a primary alcohol is what we call an SN2 reaction, which requires a strong (charged) nucleophile. You may think OH- is the catalyst cuz it deprotonates water, but this isn't actually the case. You use up 1 particle of OH- to deprotonate 1 molecule H2O (making 1 particle of OH-) which then reacts with a haloalkane molecule (so you end up using 2 particles of OH- while only producing 1, for a net use of 1 OH- particle). Since catalysts by definition aren't consumed, OH- in this case is a reactant, not a catalyst

        Billzene So do you think we need to include states for the reactant and catalyst in hydration of alkenes. The 2020 report just says H20 / H+, but I usually see H2O(g) and H3PO4(aq). If the alkene and water are both gases, what is the acid aqueous in? Can things dissolve in steam? Thanks heaps Bilzene!

          Also, in H-NMR, if the adjacent H on adjacent carbon atoms are in the same chemical environment (say a cycloalkane for example), is there any splitting pattern. If not, what about when the chemical environment is only slightly different, like for 2 adjacent CH2 groups in an octane molecule. Would it then be a splitting pattern with a tiny chemical shift either side?

          And more importantly, does VCAA care? Thanks again.

            Jesus
            That's precisely the reason VCAA doesn't ask you the states of the H3PO4 catalyst since people can debate forever about whether it's (g) or (aq). You should always write H2O (g) though

            Jesus
            Hs in the same environment don't split each other, so for cyclohexane, you'll just see a singlet that integrates to 12

            Slightly different chemical environments do produce splits. The width of the split doesn't matter since you only deal with 3J coupling in VCE chem

              Does VCAA care if we do not specify something implied during naming of a compound?
              Eg. Propanone is obviously propan-2-one

                Will I'm pretty sure if you write something unnecessary like ethan-1-ol it will be marked wrong. But we will have to see what Bilzene says

                  Will
                  Great Question Will! I'm not sure, but would like to know was well 🙂

                  I wonder if it applies for the prefix as well (eg. "methyl ethanol"); Or would you need to write '1-methyl ethanol'....

                  Jesus Surely not... That'd be really mean of VCAA.....

                  Will I'm sure Billzene will be able to give you a better answer since I'm a bit out of touch with VCE chemistry, but I am pretty sure that the numbers are not necessary for compounds that are implied. For example, no need to write propan-2-one, propanone will suffice (but you actually don't need to know how to name aldehydes and ketones for VCE chemistry anyway)

                  Jesus
                  You wouldn't lose marks for writing this.

                  Will
                  It's super inconsistent. I got a mark taken off on a SAC for writing propan-2-one due to the redundant number, but when I omitted it on my exam, I got a mark taken off there. This might be bad luck since the students I tutor never lost a mark on their exams for including or excluding a redundant position number.

                  Hey Billzene,
                  Do you know if we need to know which amino acids are essential?

                    Will
                    You absolutely don't. They'll tell you in the question if an amino acid is essential or non-essential

                    13 days later

                    hey
                    for this questions write an equation that shows hso4- acting as base in water. Would it be. Thank you

                    h2so4 + h20 = hso4- + h30+

                      chemistry1111
                      You’re showing H2SO4 acting as an acid, not HSO4- acting as a base. Remember that bases grab H+ i.e. they neutralise (remove) H3O+ instead of making more H3O+

                      hamna_fa
                      Hi!

                      Edit: I'm completely wrong... Mybad! See Will

                      Presuming the standard solution is used to make the titrant/aliquot; here's my understanding!

                      - This would mean that the concentration would have been artificially decreased (as the titrant would be diluted).
                      - This would mean there would be an overestimation of aliquot added.

                      • Meaning the concentration measurement would be greater than the real value.

                      Hope this helps!