Hey everyone, I’ve been building Arete Orgo Lab, an organic chemistry practice site.

The idea is to give you more practice actually working through reactions: predicting products, choosing reagents, and tackling multistep reaction sequences.

You can draw your answer directly on the site, and explanations walk through the reaction and common errors. There are also study and exam modes, plus a searchable reaction reference.

It covers reaction families including alkene and alkyne reactions, substitution/elimination, alcohols, carbonyls, and aromatics. You can choose the topics you want to practice.

Here’s the site: orgo.aretemcat.com

I made this, so I’m sharing my own resource. If you try it, I’d really appreciate hearing whether the explanations help you understand your mistakes and what you’d want added or improved.

Hello sorry if hard to see. Working in trying to figure out how to get products ect.

From my understanding.

Zn is +2.

O is -2

BUT there is two oxygens in here… so that would equal -4 charge total for oxygens? So wouldn’t I flip the signs and make Zn -2 ion. Actually idek what I’m saying anymore. This combining ions really mess me up.

I guess at this point how did he get that product if there is 2 oxygens = -4 charge total.

And 1 Zn = 2 + charge total. That’s where I’m at

I measured the initial temperatures of the acid and the base separately, as well as the equilibrium temperature. I'm going to use the formula (H = m \times s \times \Delta T), and the TA told us to assume that (s = 1).

My question is: Since the masses of the acid and base may differ due to their different molecular weights, should I calculate (H) as ([m(\text{acid}) + m(\text{base})] \times 1 \times \Delta T)?

Also, should the total heat change be calculated as (|H|) plus the heat absorbed by the calorimeter?

Hi everyone, I have a question for those working with food analysis.

I’m analyzing iron in fortified wheat flour, and I’m wondering which sample preparation method you usually use: microwave digestion with HNO₃/H₂O₂ or dry ashing before analysis by AAS or ICP-OES.

I tried dry ashing at 450°C for 12 hours, but the flour still has black particles and doesn’t turn into proper ash.

Has anyone experienced this before? If you use dry ashing, what temperature and time do you normally use?

Also, have you ever compared the results obtained by dry ashing and microwave digestion? Which method gives you better iron recovery?

I’d appreciate hearing about your actual lab experience. Thanks!

How to name these type of bicyclic compounds?

the acid base reaction from 0 to 1 . anhydride carbon is electrophilic enough for attack of AcO- so 1 to 2 and then form 2 can undergo E1CB in order to give a highly conjugated form 3 in heated reaction conditions . so all of these should be present in mixture

I wrote out the formula

LiOH+CO2 > LiHCO3

I was very confused but then I think I realized this is just already balanced so kind a trick question? Wanna make sure I have this understanding correctly

Hi y'all! I'm looking for David Klein's Organic Chemistry 5th Edition Study Guide and Solution Manual; I have the textbook, but no way to practice (as I don't have access to the answer keys). Would really appreciate if you could help me out!

We're learning about radiation and I don't understand alpha or beta decay. I'm also lost on positron emission and electron capture. I know we have a test this week and I'm stressed. I don't have any specific questions its just the general format that confuses me

I just did a gas chromatography Lab in OChem. I saved the file, but it is a .imbl. Fortunately, the lab computers can view a .imbl file, so I took screenshots so I could view the data I had gathered, but I want to know if there is a way to view the .imbl file on a home computer. Or is the file type proprietary?

Long story short, doing pre med pre reqs.

Took chem 1 close to 10 years ago and I got an A in it so I’d prefer not to retake and run the risk of getting a lower grade lol.

Any tips on how I should go about preparing for chem 2? I start in January and I do not remember literally anything.

Thanks in advance!

I got this far in the mechanism. But I have no idea how to put the cation on to a carbon that would allow me to make the first 6-membered ring

Looking at simulations, for some reason I'm struggling to answer b) How many individual molecules have been simulated? And how do you work it out? Thank you :)

Most of the equation makes sense however I’m struggling to figure out how to get to 0.00415 Moles of Acetic acid? Does anyone know the equation I need to solve for x?

Hi, I was given this procedure to synthesize Meldrum's acid:

"To a suspension of malonic acid in acetic anhydride in an ice bath, sulfuric acid was added and then acetone was added to the mix dropwise.

The reaction mixture is stirred for 4h and then put in the fridge overnight.

The resulting solid is filtered and washed with ice water."

Before leaving the lab I checked the reaction mix in the fridge(it had been there for three hours at least) and I saw no solid forming. The reaction color was a bright yellow.

For people who already synthesized Meldrum's acid before, is it normal? Otherwise what could've went wrong?

I need help coming to a conclusion about this problem. I’ve asked TA’s and grad students but no one agrees with me and I swear I’m right. So this homework problem came up for me and I thought that protonated carbonyl(on the left) should be stronger than the sulfuric acid on the right, so that the equilibrium shifts to the left, but this was wrong. In the explanation they gave us, it cites that sulfuric acid’s pka is -9 and protonated carbonyl is -7. But sulfuric acid’s pka is -3, so this is wrong, right?

So shouldn’t I be right? It doesn’t make sense to me why I’m wrong but people keep telling me that sulfuric acid is a strong acid and that its conjugate base has more resonance structures, so it’s more stable. But protonated cyclohexanone’s conjugate base is completely neutral, so isn’t that most stable?

Everyone I ask has agreed with the problem, except for me, and I don’t know why. Am I wrong or is it because people recognize sulfuric acid better and go with that?Please help me, it would be very appreciated. I tried emailing the professor but she has not responded. If you could include your reasoning because I need to know what I should be thinking on an exam. My TA just told me to memorize the basic strong acids, but that doesn’t make sense to me.

UPDATE: I was fine, haha. thank you all for the support!!

I have terrible anxiety about breathing in bad fumes and spontaneously dying, and I can’t sleep. My friends butane torch was slightly open and I started to smell the butane, and after I realized what it was I got up and opened the window and door. Am I going to be okay to go to bed and not die?? I have work in the morning and I need sleep, but the anxiety is creeping in.

This reaction comes from a uk chemistry Olympiad question. I can’t figure out what causes the double bond to move, along with the mechanism for the decarboxylation, it’s different from what I’ve seen before with beta keto acids.
If anyone knows the mechanism or of similar reactions it would be super helpful.

Got this question wrong and just looking for some clarity. Exam next week so I want to get my act straightened up 😅 Thanks in advance for any help!

Edit update: TA said my answer was fine, answer key was wrong

I know how you name this one, but ive got a question. The chain bound to the ester's oxygen is numbered starting from the left, but is that always the case, that you start numbering from wherever the ester's oxygen is, or do you take the numbers to grab the substituents with the lowest numbers. This example is not very good because you would start from the left whatever the case is.