Compounds of carbon containing other groups

Various groups can be attached to any positions of a carbon chain or around the ring.
The prefixes which can be added give the names of the groups attached and are as follows:

• Cl, chloro compounds, e.g. CH3 CH2 Cl, chloroethane;
• Br, bromo compound, e.g. CH3 CH2 CH2 CH2 Br, 1-bromobutane;
• F, fluoro compounds, e.g. F CH2 CH2 CH2F, 1,3-difluoropropane;
• NH2, amino compounds or amines, e.g. CH3 CH2 NH2, amino ethane or ethylamine;
• OH, hydroxy compounds or alcohols with ‘ol’ in their names, e.g. CH3 CH2 CH2OH, propan-1-ol or 1-hydroxypropane;
• COOH, carboxylic acids with the C of COOH in the chain are called an ‘-oic acid’, e.g. CH3COOH, ethanoic acid;
• CHO, aldehydes have ‘al’ in their names, e.g. CH3 CH2 CHO, propananal;
• C O, ketones have ‘one’ in their names, e.g. CH3 CO CH3, propanone;
• C C, ‘unsaturated’ groups are shown by names containing an ‘ene’, e.g. CH3 CH ¼ CH2, propene;
• C6H5, phenyl, e.g. C6H5 CH2 CH3, phenylethane.

If there are two groups of the same type in a molecule, its name has a prefix ‘di’, e.g. di-chloro-, and you need to say on which carbon atoms the Cl is located, e.g. ClCH2 CH2 CH2Cl would be called ‘1,3-dichloropropane’. Note the commas between numbers and the hyphen between a number and a letter. More names will be given in later chapters.