Organic Chemistry

Organic Chemistry - Basic Introduction
The Organic Chemistry Tutor


Organic Chemistry
This article discusses the basics of organic chemistry, focusing on
organic compounds that contain carbon atoms. Carbon likes to form
four bonds, but other elements have different preferences for bond
formation.

Bond Preferences

• Hydrogen (in the first group of the periodic table) likes to form
one bond
• Beryllium likes to form two bonds
• Boron likes to form three bonds
• Carbon has four valence electrons and likes to form four bonds
• Nitrogen likes to form three bonds
• Oxygen likes to form two bonds
• Fluorine and other halogens (chlorine, bromine, iodine) like to
form one bond
Understanding these preferences helps in drawing Lewis structures,
which are diagrams representing the arrangement of electrons in a
molecule. For example, water (H2O) has a Lewis structure with two
hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom, which also has two lone
pairs of electrons.

Covalent Bonds
Covalent bonds involve the sharing of electrons between atoms. There
are three types of covalent bonds:

• Polar covalent bonds: electrons are shared unequally
• Nonpolar covalent bonds: electrons are shared equally