Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How to know what chems to use?

DrEntheogen - 5-2-2012 at 20:27

Im having alot of trouble trying to find literature about what chemicals, reagents, and catalysts to use, and what makes a certain point on a molecule reactive, how to breake the bond and replace it with another atom or group.
Example: If i had benzaldehyde and i wanted to add a chain to it to turn it into phenethylamine? or if i had anhydrous Caffeine and i wanted to add a chain at the one position on the ring on the right, Replacing the double bonded oxygen?

If someone could direct me to some literature for this or give me atleast a breif description. Because i wanna contribute to this site and help people soon but i refuse to give miss information. So any info or reading source/s would be awesome.

200px-Caffeineredraw.png - 5kB

smaerd - 5-2-2012 at 20:45

Sounds to me like you are interested in learning organic chemistry. This is a very big question you're asking. I'd recommend checking out some books on-line, or score a textbook from a used/half priced book store.

[Edited on 6-2-2012 by smaerd]

Ephoton - 5-2-2012 at 21:33

this ought to sort ya out there bro :)

http://torrentz.eu/25d78618f9124d25576d9a16de37c519caea619b

remeber there is a whole journal database behind these books another great book to find in torrent
is the merck index it has entries for most chemicals.

anyway hope this helps ;)

DrEntheogen - 6-2-2012 at 00:03

thanks guys i appreciate it. im guessing i should llook up some beginers labs as well and do some hands on stuff too huh?

smaerd - 6-2-2012 at 00:14

Hands on is a great way to learn(this is an experimental science after-all ;)). Youtube may have examples for some reactions you may be interested in as well. Youtube also has videos of how to use certain equipment, online lessons, explanations, etc. So if you are a visual/auditory learner this is another good way to go. Be ready to be humbled and confused but things do start clicking so keep at it its a wonderful subject to learn :).

some useful free-ware I found was MarvinSketch by ChemAxxon I believe. It helped to learn about structures(how they're drawn) and get names for compounds I couldn't work out the names for. Also nice for pKa calculations, and many other things. Highly recommended.

On this forum it is very encouraged to do research and ask specific questions though, so try and keep this in mind for the future. Granted when I was new I made a bit of posts somewhat similar to this as well.

zoombafu - 6-2-2012 at 12:51

If you have any used book stores in your area check them out. You can often find text books for 10-20 dollars. This is where I got a couple of organic chem books for a fraction of the price of buying new.

GreenD - 6-2-2012 at 14:14

go to good will near a college, you will find chemistry text books for less than 5 dollars.