Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: anlb4 on December 03, 2004, 05:48:46 AM
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Good Morning...Could you tell me what substitution and addition mean in organic chemistry..we are studying hydrocarbons and functional groups
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Substitution is as its name describes; a substitution of one component (I.E. functional group) for another. Let's say you have the formula H3C-CH3 and you perform a substitution reaction involving an OH group. The OH group will replace one of the H's in the molecule giving you an alcohol; H3C-CH2OH.
An addition reaction is when a functional group or atom is added to a molecule. so if you had H2C=CH2 and performed an addition reaction with fluorine, you'd get FH2C-CH2F. So the fluorine gets added to the compound.
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ditto above
but I believe substitution refers more to functional groups and not the entire compound
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ditto above
but I believe substitution refers more to functional groups and not the entire compound
Indeed. Just a wrong choice of words on my part.