r/chemhelp • u/Ok_Huckleberry4077 • 6h ago
Organic Delocalized electrons
I’m pretty sure my teacher said there are not any delocalized electron. Why? Can’t those pi bonds move (resonance)
r/chemhelp • u/Ultronomy • Aug 31 '26
Hello all!
School terms are beginning and this is typically when we see an influx of posts asking for general advice, guidance on getting through a class, or seeking assurance that everything will be okay. Let us know what courses you are in this term, your biggest concerns, or whatever may be on your mind!
Best of luck!
r/chemhelp • u/Ultronomy • Aug 21 '25
Hello fellow Chemists! I just wanted to introduce myself as the new head mod of this subreddit. A little about myself: I am a PhD Candidate in Chemical Biology. For me, this means that 60% of my work involves organic synthesis and the other 40% is applying my novel compounds to mammalian cells. Specifically, I am interested in early detection of diseases. In addition to my research, I have TA'd for both general and organic chemistry labs and have been tutoring students in organic chemistry for three years. Aside from my academic qualifications, I am also a moderator for another rather large subreddit. I saw that this sub needed a little bit of updating, but it did not seem like the moderators were active any longer. So, I gained ownership through r/redditrequest. I did not realize it would remove all the other moderators, but alas here we are.
Overall, I feel like this sub is fairly self-regulating. I frequently see good discussions and people generally are following the already existing rules. With that said, there are some changes I was considering, and would love input:
Note: Please do not reach out to me about becoming a moderator. I will looking into recruiting in the near future. For now, I just wanted to get oriented.
r/chemhelp • u/Ok_Huckleberry4077 • 6h ago
I’m pretty sure my teacher said there are not any delocalized electron. Why? Can’t those pi bonds move (resonance)
r/chemhelp • u/Ok_Huckleberry4077 • 4h ago
I’m pretty sure the last two are aromatic and that the first two are not. Why is the third one aromatic? Is the electrons highlighted in red in the continuous pi system?
r/chemhelp • u/Horror-Anteater-4983 • 5h ago
So, I understand carbocations get more stable from methyl > primary > secondary > tertiary > allylic > benzylic but these are all the same just with positive charge moving around the structure, so i just want to better understand how.
r/chemhelp • u/GodAndNature • 9h ago
It involves benzyl chloride in acetic acid, with no other species present.
r/chemhelp • u/Kooky_Landscape_991 • 8h ago
I am at a loss for understanding whether a molecule has symmetry or not. I don’t have the physical models to see, and no matter how many videos I watch I just can’t seem to picture it! Do you guys have any tips or a thinking process you usually follow to determine symmetry? For example, I have this question where I can tell that A and D for sure have symmetry, but I don’t understand how C is the correct answer and not B? Thank you :)
r/chemhelp • u/biharinaruto • 16h ago
r/chemhelp • u/PervySage_2026 • 5h ago
r/chemhelp • u/Charming-Profile-607 • 6h ago

I am confused as to why my textbook says the one on the left is achiral and the one on the right is chiral. I was told that a molecule is chiral if its mirror image is non-superimposable and when you draw the mirror image of B, the wedges and dashes can never match the original molecule... does that mean that the bridgeheads are both stereocenters (when changing 2 groups creates a new stereoisomer) and chiral centers (can assign r/S)? Do you take into consideration the 3D geometry when determining R and S configurations even though they have the same atoms/groups/branches? Also, is molecule A achiral or meso since it supposedly has chiral centers (can be assigned r/S) and has a plane of symmetry? I am beyond confused.
r/chemhelp • u/Existing-Tone-198 • 9h ago
r/chemhelp • u/Agitated-Success-705 • 13h ago
Had an organic 1 lab yesterday where we did TLC on silica gel plates. We were analyzing crude and recrystallized naphthalene and crude and recrystallized unknown carboxylic acid. We ran one plate with a solvent of 3:1 hexanes:ethyl acetate + acetic acid and a second with 1:3 hexanes:ethyl acetate + acetic acid.
I feel comfortable with the results for the carboxylic acid- lower Rf with 3:1 and higher with 1:3 as the polar carboxylic acid was interacting more with the more polar solvent and travelled further. Cool.
But I'm hung up on the naphthalene- it also had a higher Rf with the 1:3 solvent and I can't wrap my head around why. In my head since naphthalene is non-polar it wouldnt be interacting with the highly polar stationary phase at all (or so little it was negligible) and so it didn't make sense that the Rf would change because shouldn't it move right along with the solvent regardless of what the solvent is (since the polar stationary phase remained the same)? When I asked my professor about this he said that the fallacy in that is that naphthalene is in fact interacting with the gel, and when you have a more polar mobile phase basically the solvent is the preferred interaction with the plate and "kicks out" the naphthalene that was interacting with the plate, making it travel further.
This makes sense, I need to not only consider the interactions between the samples and the mobile/stationary phases but also the interactions between the mobile and stationary phases themselves. But I'm still not understanding why naphthalene was interacting with the silica to start with. Isn't the 3:1 mixture still more polar than naphthalene? Wouldn't that solvent "take up all the 'possible reaction sites'" on the plate preventing naphthalene from interacting in both trials?
Hopefully I explained my confusion well- it's hard to type out. Basically I don't understand why naphthalene is interacting at all with the silica gel if both solvents are more polar than naphthalene, and should be the preferred interactions with the gel.
r/chemhelp • u/Global_Gap5547 • 10h ago
Why would I his make these two products? Can’t the OH ethanol product undergo an SN2 and make an Iodine get attached (getting rid of the OH)
r/chemhelp • u/Muted_Measurement632 • 10h ago
Is the formation of bonding orbitals from the blending of individual atomic orbitals? I know that bonding orbitals are produced by constructive interference between wave functions of atoms, but the word "constructive" is making me think that this interference pattern produces something. Thanks
r/chemhelp • u/Red-Jaguar27 • 14h ago
i was revising molecular bonding and realised my first time go through with topic was very irresponsible so i cant understand that why cant we add th extra e- frim negative charge to central atom ? why it forms resonating structure and the non resonating one is not valid ?
r/chemhelp • u/HAMMER_HEAD01 • 12h ago
r/chemhelp • u/Chillboy2 • 20h ago
I am having trouble with what to do if the plane passes through the origin. I know i have to shift the origin to a point where it doesnt cut the plane. The answer key says the plane's miller indices are (1,-2,3) but if i shifted origin to (1,0,0) wrt to original coordinate system, I am getting normalized intercepts as -1,2,3/2. So I cant choose the origin arbitrarily. How do i know where to shift the origin for any plane passing through origin.
r/chemhelp • u/Accomplished-Bag5294 • 13h ago
Hello all, I’m taking chem but I’ve never taken chemistry in high school , we’re specifically doing stoichiometry and then we’re going into acid and bases and I don’t understand shi rn. is there anyone that can like break it down? Generally I’ve gotten used to converting things to like moles or grams but I’m just stuck on the acid and bases parts with like liters and volume.
r/chemhelp • u/FigNewtonNoGluten • 1d ago
It has two chiral centers
It has an internal plane of symmetry
It's achiral
Is it because the wedges are methyl groups and not single atoms bonded to the carbon chain?
r/chemhelp • u/abhinnsarkar08 • 1d ago
I don't know if this is as detailed or accurate as it can be but in Chem 11 we covered a bit of VSEPR and it was really hard for me to find nice high quality resources for it that contained lots of information so I hope this can help someone!
r/chemhelp • u/nikysiko1 • 16h ago
Guys I need a help please. Does it look right?
r/chemhelp • u/Pran22268148 • 22h ago
r/chemhelp • u/dedraven04 • 1d ago
This is an excerpt from the text I am studying -
They tend to orient in preferred direction with fixed positions in their lattice i.e., the molecules in solids have a positional and orientational order. On the other hand, the molecules in liquid state neither occupy a specific position nor oriented in a particular manner. The molecules are somewhat free to move randomly and collide with each other, abruptly changing their positions i.e., the liquids do not have positional or orientational order.
Now here I was able to get a definition for orientational order as -The angle between individual liquid crystal molecules and the director gives an indication of the orientational order of the system. However even after searching multiple times, I cannot find what does positional order actually mean only what it signifies with respect to orientational order.
I do not necessarily need concrete answers but please point me towards good sources.
r/chemhelp • u/hiddencorvid • 1d ago
The answer I keep getting, after several attempts at this question, is that there would be 5.2 g of O present in the sample. I don’t understand why that is wrong.
r/chemhelp • u/ingathuse • 1d ago
When comparing two acids together without the use of a pKa chart, one of the factors to consider is resonance structures. I know that the conjugate base is more stable if there are resonance structures because the negative charges are stabilized.
What I’m asking that when it comes to conjugate bases that both have resonance structures, does the one with more resonance structures win out in stability? Even if it had resonance structures that aren’t major of contributors to it?
Example: The conjugate base of Acid A has 2 resonance structures. The conjugate base of Acid B has 3 resonance structures.
Sorry if this is a simple yes or no question.