The material in these tutorials are intended to aid in your understanding of simple organic nomenclature, what might be expected for a general chemistry or GOB course. The pages are subdivided into topics based on the different functional groups present in organic molecules. Each section consists of a brief introduction, including examples, and a number of interactive online quizzes to test your understanding of the material. As a student it is your responsibility to determine when you have a sufficient understanding of the material.
Organic nomenclature is based on the priority of the different functional groups in the molecule. If you are not familiar with the different functional groups you need to study them first.
These pages make use of JSmol to display molecules. If you are not familiar with Jmol check this short help page.
The quizzes make use of the JSME to draw the structure of an organic molecule. Be sure you are comfortable using this app. Chek the Learn to Smile page to see how it works and get some practise.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists (IUPAC) has devised a system of rules which act as a guide in naming organic molecules. A standardized system for naming organic compounds was needed due the the vast number of structures possible with hydrocarbons. Although the IUPAC system of nomenclature has been in place since the 1930's, it still provides several alternative methods for naming organic compounds. In addition, there are a number of compounds which are still referred to by their common names. This complicates organic nomenclature to some degree as several names may be possible for any single compound. The important point of organic nomenclature is that the name(s) are unique to that single compound and should be unambiguous, i.e. the name reflects the structure of the molecule.
Since every organic molecule contains carbon (and usually hydrogen) atoms, the names of these to elements do not appear in the name of the compound. Instead IUPAC uses the longest continuous chain of carbon atoms to determine the basic, or root name of the compound. The root name is then modified by the presence of different functional groups. In substitutive nomenclature the highest priority function group modifies the suffix of the root name, while all other groups, or substituents, are added as prefixes to the root name. Other ways of naming compounds are allowed, such as function group (or class) nomenclature in which names the compound based on the highest priority functional group, i.e. the compound is named as an alcohol, ketone, alkyl halide, etc. This tutorial site will focus on substitutive nomenclature only.
The following list of functional groups will contain an introduction to the nomenclature of that functional group, including examples. At the end of each section is a online quiz designed to test your new knowledge of the subject. All tutorials can be accessed through this link: Tutorials. Note: if you can not seem to get the correct answer, enter a question mark (?) in the text box and you will get the correct answer returned.