10 votes
Accepted

Does a slippery liquid leak through pipe fittings?

Potassium hydroxide ($\ce{KOH}$) makes skin feel slippery because it saponifies oils in your skin, changing them to soap. It is called caustic potash because of the damage it does to tissue. However, ...
DrMoishe Pippik's user avatar
6 votes

Why are "vinylic" and "allylic" carbons named so?

Actually, word roots in organic chemistry aren't of much help because the origins have little connection with the actual molecular structure. There are entire books dedicated to these topics of you ...
AChem's user avatar
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4 votes
Accepted

Substitution or elimination when a chloroalkene reacts with NaOH in ethanol?

This is an example of the subtle difference between different bases that are strong in water but may not be equally strong in other, less polar solvents. Alcoholic potassium hydroxide certainly does ...
Oscar Lanzi's user avatar
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3 votes

Why are "vinylic" and "allylic" carbons named so?

Knowing the origin of the terms won't help you to identify what carbon is "allyic" or "vinylic". A vinyl group is a functional group with the formula $\ce{−CH=CH2}$ and allyl group ...
Nilay Ghosh's user avatar
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3 votes

Cyclopentadiene planar

Analysis just based on ideal local geometry [OP in comments] But here won't the carbon be strained as it is sp3 and and the bond angle is too large In a regular pentagon, the angle at each corner is ...
Karsten's user avatar
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3 votes

Lithium aluminium hydride

Contrasting to reductions with elemental sodium (or other metals), the reduction by $\ce{LiAlH4}$ is not an electrochemical one by mere electron transfer only. Instead, the complex anion ($\ce{[AlH4]^...
Buttonwood's user avatar
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2 votes

Alcohols and bromine

Who says bromine does not oxidise alcohols? Bromine is known to directly oxidise primary alcohols. According to this JACS paper ethanol is oxidised to a mixture of acetaldehyde, acetic acid and ethyl ...
Waylander's user avatar
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1 vote

Cyclopentadiene planar

There are two confusions here The first source of confusion is the caused by the fact that the most common occurance of the five membered cyclopentadienyl ring isn't cyclopentadiene but the ...
matt_black's user avatar
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1 vote

Why does alpha-carbon substituents increase the rate of E2 reactions?

You are on to something. Check out the product ratios here: https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Organic_Chemistry/Supplemental_Modules_(Organic_Chemistry)/Alkyl_Halides/Properties_of_Alkyl_Halides/...
jimchmst's user avatar
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1 vote

Standard electrode potentials

Organic compounds equally have their standard electrode potentials, and their determination in solutions (e.g., by cyclic voltammetry, see for example the primer by Elgrishi et al.) is one method to ...
Buttonwood's user avatar
  • 27.7k
1 vote
Accepted

Clear polystyrene bottle holder repaired with butyl acetate glue. Is it safe to use in the fridge?

Butyl acetate is found in small quantity in fruits such as apples, and is considered safe, in most regions, for use in nail polish. However, this site specifically excludes medical recommendations. (...
DrMoishe Pippik's user avatar

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