Organic Chemistry essay

Alcohols are generally represented by the formula R-OH (Elsheimer, 2000). R represents an alkyl group. Alcohols are classified as primary secondary or tertiary. Alcohols compounds have a hydroxyl group bonded to an sp3 hybridized carbon article. The most common alcohol compound is ethanol.These compounds have a hydroxyl group bonded to an aromatic hydrocarbon group. The simplest member of this class is called phenol (Hoffman, 2004).These are organic compounds with two hydrocarbons bonded to oxygen. Esters are dehydration products of carboxylic acids and alcohols (Hoffman, 2004). Esters can be found in fruits and perfumes and are sweet smelling compounds. Esters are prepared by reacting anhydrides with alcohols. Anhydrides also react with alcohols to form esters (Macomber, 1996). The structure of a carboxylic ester.These are binary compounds that contain halogen and another element or a radical. An example is alkyl halides which have a general formula of RX where R is the alkyl group and X is a halogenAldehydes and KetonesThese compounds contain a carbonyl group with a double bond between the carbon atom and and oxygen atom. ketones have two aryl and alkyl groups bonded to the carbonyl whereas Aldehydes have one alkyl group and one hydrogen or two (e.g. Formadehyde) bonded to carbonyl(Macomber, 1996).These are organic acids with acidic properties. Carboxylic acids are the most common organic acids and have a functional carboxyl group (Elsheimer, 2000). Most of the organic acids occur naturally e.g. in fruitsStructure of a carboxylic acid one of the most common organic acidsAmines are saturated  ammonia derivatives and are moderately basic (Hoffman, 2004). Amines are classified as primary, secondary or tertiary depending on the number of carbon atoms attached nitrogen. An example of an Amine.