Up Learn – A Level Chemistry (aqa) – Organic Synthesis

Map of Organic Synthesis: Part 2

Outlining half of the organic reactions you’ll learn in Y13

More videos on Organic Synthesis:

Map of Organic Synthesis: Part 1

Map of Organic Synthesis: Part 2

Organic Synthesis Reactions: Worked Example 1

Organic Synthesis Reactions: Worked Example 2

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Up Learn – A Level Chemistry (AQA)

Organic Synthesis

1. It’s A Syn
2. Organic Synthesis: Year 12 Recap
3. Organic Synthesis: Year 13 Part 1
4. Organic Synthesis: Year 13 Part 2
5. Organic Synthesis: Aromatic Compounds
6. Multi-step Synthesis
7. Conversion of Primary Alcohols to Carboxylic Acids
8. Designing an Organic Synthesis: Worked Example 1
9. Designing an Organic Synthesis: Worked Example 2
10. Designing an Organic Synthesis: Worked Example 3
11. Designing an Organic Synthesis: Worked Example 4
12. Tips for Answering Synthesis Questions
13. Synthesis Questions
14. Choosing a Route: Limitations of Reaction Types
15. Choosing a Route: Waste
16. Choosing a Route: Solvent and Starting Materials

So far, we’ve looked at these year 13 organic reactions.

Now, we’re going to complete this diagram! 

First off, we’ve seen that we can react an alcohol and carboxylic acid together to form an ester 

For this reaction, we heat the alcohol and carboxylic acid together with an acid catalyst.

And we can hydrolyse esters under either

We can hydrolyse esters under either acidic or alkaline conditions.

Next, we saw that we can convert an aldehyde or ketone into a hydroxynitrile

For this reaction, we need…

To produce a hydroxynitrile, we typically react the aldehyde or ketone with potassium cyanide and sulfuric acid

This is an example of a nucleophilic addition reaction.

Finally, we saw a few more nucleophilic addition elimination reactions with acyl chlorides and acid anhydrides

We saw that we can convert them into an ester by reacting them with…

We can convert an acyl chloride or acid anhydride into an ester by reacting them with an alcohol

And we can convert them into a carboxylic acid by reacting them with…

We can convert an acyl chloride or acid anhydride into a carboxylic acid by reacting them with water.

And this is our complete diagram for organic synthesis!

Now, in the exam, you could be asked to identify the products that form from any one of these reactions.

The reagents and conditions needed.

Or name the type of reaction.

However, this diagram only focuses on aliphatic chemistry

So, we’ll take a look at the reactions we’ve seen with aromatic compounds, next! 

To sum up, our diagram for aliphatic organic synthesis looks like…


Our diagram for aliphatic organic synthesis looks like this.