Useful Concepts

There are really only a few fundamental mechanistic processes in organic chemistry.
Here they are, complete with the curly arrows to show the general bonding changes, for each of the mechanistic classes.
Other "more" complex mechanisms are typically composites of this fundamental set.
Remember, most of these "classes" can be subdivided depending on the exact order of events (e.g. S_N1 or S_N2)
Links are provided to key descriptions of each mechanism from the chapter pages.
 
 

© Dr. Ian Hunt, Department of Chemistry