A problem we see students constantly running into is that they do not readily recognize strong acids in organic chemistry class.\u00a0 This is a terrible mistake and should never happen; you will need to quickly recognize strong acids and understand which atom they will be protonating.\u00a0 As far as strong acids go, you should immediately identify the Magnificent Seven:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STRONG ACIDS<\/strong>: HI, HCl, HBr, HNO3<\/sub>, H2<\/sub>SO4<\/sub>, HClO3<\/sub>, H3<\/sub>PO4 (and H3ClO4)<\/sub><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just think that that it\u2019s the three hydrogen halides and the four acids that have N, S, Cl, and P as central atoms.\u00a0 Many students remember the other four acids with the mnemonic, something you would never say to a girlfriend: \u201cN<\/strong>ever S<\/strong>ay \u2018P<\/strong>lease Cl<\/strong>ean\u2019 \u201d.<\/p>\n Once you have recognized that you have a strong acid present in your reaction, it is necessary to determine what it is protonating.\u00a0 Remember that H+<\/sup> is electron-deficient (Lewis acidic) and will look for an electron-rich (Lewis basic) atom to protonate.\u00a0 This could be a nitrogen atom, such as an amine, or an oxygen atom in a carbonyl or an alcohol.\u00a0 Most often, the atom being protonated will have a lone pair somewhere on it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Take Home Message<\/strong><\/span>: Know the strong acids<\/strong>, the mnemonic \u201cNever Say Please Clean\u201d might help<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A problem we see students constantly running into is that they do not readily recognize strong acids in organic chemistry class.\u00a0 This is a terrible mistake and should never happen; you will need to quickly recognize strong acids and understand which atom they will be protonating.\u00a0 As far as strong acids go, you should immediately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tPTC-y6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aceorganicchem.com\/Elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}