BSC 118 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Chemical Formula, Electron Configuration, Organic Compound

• School: University of Alabama
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BSC 118
• Professor: Steven Marcus

Document Summary

Skeletal formulas for linear and branched hydrocarbons. Isomers are compounds that have the same molecular formula but different structures and chemical properties: the number of possible isomers increases as carbon skeletons increase in size: 366,319 possible structures of icosane (c20h42: types of isomers. Structural isomers have different covalent arrangements of their atoms. Cis-trans isomers have the same covalent bonds but differ in spatial arrangements. Enantiomers are isomers that are mirror images of each other\ Structural isomers: differ in the covalent arrangements of their atoms, example: two structural isomers of butane (c4h10): Cis-trans isomers: have same covalent arrangements but differ in spatial arrangements, arise from double bonded carbons because they do not allow atoms they join to rotate freely about the bond axis. They are important in the pharmaceutical industry: two enantiomers of a drug may have different effects, usually only one isomer is biologically active, differing effects of enantiomers demonstrate that organisms are sensitive to even subtle variations in molecules.