Oxidation and Reduction reactions will come up over and over in your organic chemistry course. Think you’ve mastered redox reactions and reagents? Try the practice quiz below then scroll down (end of the quiz) for the PDF solutions. Not fully confident with redox? Review the redox tutorial video series and follow along with the Orgo Redox […]
Aromatic Side Chain Oxidation to Carboxylic Acid
Aromatic side chain oxidation is an interesting reaction. Benzene is not easily oxidized, nor is an alkane. However, when attached to a benzene ring the benzylic carbon is susceptible to a unique oxidation yielding a benzoic acid. This video walks you through the reaction including what to look out for along with multiple practice problems. […]
Birch Reduction Reaction and Mechanism
Aromatic compounds are considered very stable thus difficult to react. Birch Reduction is one example of an extreme reaction strong enough to break benzene’s aromaticity to form an non conjugated cyclohexadiene. This video breaks down the reaction and mechanism, followed by my trick for quickly identifying the product when EDG/EWG substituents are present. (Watch on YouTube: Birch […]
Oxidation and Reduction of Alkenes and Alkynes
This video takes you through the various oxidation and reduction reactions you’ve covered back in alkene and alkyne reactions. In this video we differentiate between redox reactions vs reactions that add oxygen/hydrogen without a net reduction. This video also compares different types of oxidative cleavage reactions using Ozonolysis and KMnO4 for terminal and internal alkenes […]
Introduction to Oxidation Reduction Reactions in Organic Chemistry
Oxidation and Reduction reactions in organic chemistry are very different than the redox concepts covered in general chemistry. This video shows you how the same gen-chem concepts apply, while helping you analyze it from a molecular and organic chemistry reaction perspective. This video covers the logic, definitions, and tricks to look out for when identifying […]
Tollens Reagent Silver Mirror Test for Aldehydes
The Tollens Test for Aldehydes, also known as the Silver Mirror Test, is a great way to confirm if an unknown carbonyl is an aldehyde or not. This occurs by reacting the unknown carbonyl with Silver +1 which gets reduced to metallic silver (Ag 0) when the aldehyde is oxidized to a carboxylic acid. This […]
