Types of organic reactions
Organic reactions are chemical reactions involving organic compounds. The basic organic chemistry reaction types are addition reactions, elimination reactions, substitution reactions, pericyclic reactions,rearrangement reactions, photochemical reactions and redox reactions. In organic synthesis, organic reactions are used in the construction of new organic molecules. The production of many man-made chemicals such as drugs, plastics, food additives, fabrics depend on organic reactions.
In a substitution reaction, one atom or a group of atoms in a substance is replaced by another atom or group of atoms from another substance. A typical substitution reaction is reacting the hydroxide ion with methyl chloride:
CH3Cl+OH−→CH3OH+Cl−
It proceeds by a mechanism in which the lone pair of electrons on the entering nucleophile (OH−) attacks the partially positively charged carbon atom of the polar C–Cl bond, causing the C–Cl bond to weaken and break:
