Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Kooky Isomerism


Wait, those things are molecules? I hesitated for a second to decide whether it's a real molecules or just a flattened box.

I encountered this question with those two kooky molecules, so kooky that I had to build models to understand them.

They are constitutional isomers, which means they have a common formula, C12H16, but have different connectivity.

Molecule 1 (left):

Molecule 2 (right):

Notice the twisted rings and two double bonds, one vertical and one horizontal. The different orientation of the double bonds is the reason why there're two peaks in the proton NMR instead of one.

2 comments:

  1. Cool!
    牽到不同人的手,或是用一隻手牽和用兩隻手牽
    會產生十分不同的結果
    不用你的塑膠鍵結模型,還真的很難理解
    以前我們念書的時後
    要是有這些玩具大概也不會唸的一頭霧水

    ReplyDelete