Solvent Questions

[BiomajorPreDent]

Hi

So I am going over Sn1 and Sn2 reactions

I was always freaking out when I saw all these wierd solvents like DMSO and DMF and THF etc.. Because well..I took Ochem a while back and dont remember much about them, but alot of wierd ones come up on practice exams and I have seen them on the real thing.

all the letters confused me to the point where I thought MCPBA was a solvent also..😱

Anyway, I know polar protic favors Sn1 and polar aprotic favors Sn2

I have tried to compile a list of each that way I can recognize these reactions faster and I want to see if I am missing any that are relevant for the DAT

Polar protic: water, formic acid, MeOH, EtOH, tert-BuOH, HOAc

Polar aprotic: DMSO, MeCN, DMF, HMPA, Me2CO,Ch2Cl2, THF, EtOAc, Et2O, Benzene, Hexane

Thanks

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[nze82]

Hi

So I am going over Sn1 and Sn2 reactions

I was always freaking out when I saw all these wierd solvents like DMSO and DMF and THF etc.. Because well..I took Ochem a while back and dont remember much about them, but alot of wierd ones come up on practice exams and I have seen them on the real thing.

all the letters confused me to the point where I thought MCPBA was a solvent also..😱

Anyway, I know polar protic favors Sn1 and polar aprotic favors Sn2

I have tried to compile a list of each that way I can recognize these reactions faster and I want to see if I am missing any that are relevant for the DAT

Polar protic: water, formic acid, MeOH, EtOH, tert-BuOH, HOAc

Polar aprotic: DMSO, MeCN, DMF, HMPA, Me2CO,Ch2Cl2, THF, EtOAc, Et2O, Benzene, Hexane

Thanks

The list is definitely helpful, but you didn't need to go through all the trouble. There's an easier way to distinguish protic from aportic solvents, and that's knowing the definition of these terms. Protic solvents are anything capable of establishining Hydrogen bonds (Anything including -OH, -NH, etc), while aprotic solvents are anything incapable of establishing hydrogen bonds.