Physical Organic Chemistry

Catalog description

Principles of structure and reactivity of organic compounds. One area of focus is on the factors that influence the reactivity of organic compounds in general (sterics and electronics) and methods for quantifying these effects (molecular orbital theory, conformational analysis). The other area of focus is on the pathways of the reactions of organic compounds (mechanism), focusing on basic categories and methods for developing a mechanism (kinetics, thermodynamics, isotope-labeling, spectroscopy). Modern tools of computational chemistry that are used in the study of reaction mechanisms will also be discussed. Prerequisites: CHEM 351 and 332.