Question

explain the nomenclature of carbon compounds

Answer 1

"Nomenclature is the system of assigning a proper name to a particular carbon compound on the basis of certain rules."

Most of the carbon compounds have two types of names:

Trivial NamesIUPAC Names

Sub Topics

Trivial NamesIUPAC NamesWood RootSuffixPrefixTrivial Names, IUPAC Names and Molecular Formula of some Organic Compound

 

Trivial Names

The trivial names are the commonly used names of carbon compounds. They are derived mostly from the source of the compound e.g., the name of formic acid is derived from 'formicus' the Greek word meaning red ants. Names arrived in this way were ambiguous and repeating.

IUPAC Names

With the large growth of carbon compounds, it was necessary to name these compounds in a more systematic way. A committee called the 'International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry' (IUPAC) put forward a system of giving proper scientific names to carbon based compounds. The names derived by their rules are the names followed all over the world and in short are called IUPAC names.

In this system the name of a carbon compound has three main parts as mentioned below:

Wood Root

This denotes the number of carbon atoms present in a given molecule. For e.g., C1-Meth, C2- Eth, C3 - Prop, C4- But.

Suffix

The suffix denotes the type of bonds or the functional group present in the carbon chain, e.g.

Type of bondFunctional group'ane' (single bond)'ol' for alcohols (-OH)'ene' (double bond)'al' for aldehydes (-CHO)'yne' (triple bond)'oic acid' for carboxylic acid (-COOH)

Prefix

This denotes the presence of other functional groups and their position.

For e.g., the following compound can be named as:

given above.



Word root: But (C4)

Prefix: 3, chloro

Suffix: -ol

Name: 3-chloro butanol

Note carbon atoms are numbered from the side of the functional group (-OH in this case).

Answer 2

Answer:

Rules of nomenclature of carbon compounds are given by IUPAC:-

• According to IUPAC nomenclature  longest continuous  carbon chain should be taken as the parent chain.
• Other than parent chain remaining groups are considered as the substituent
• Any functional group present in carbon chain considered as a part of the parent chain
• The carbon chain is numbered in a manner so that substituents and functional groups get the least possible number.
• The first letter of the name should be capital.
• There should be a hyphen between number and letter.

Example: $CH_{3}CH_{2}CH_{2}OH$ = 1-Propanol

( The carbon atom which is attached to OH group is numbered as 1 and there is 3 carbon atoms in the structure hence name is 1-Propanol.)

Hope it helps you :)