Where would our world be without painkillers like aspirin?
Organic acids are very important in todays society. Some other uses of carboxylic acids include: in medicine, and food, as preservatives, and the manufacturing of soap, rayon, rubber, and various perfumes.
They are polar compounds and generally have high boiling points. Although they have they word 'acid' in their name, many are just weak acids. The majority produce strong odours.
The general formula of a carboxylic acid is:
| 'R' represents a Carbon chain. In a organic acid, there is always a double bonded Oxygen with a OH group. Does this remind you of something??? It should. Carboxylic acids = Alcohol + Aldehyde!
Rules that you must follow-from the IUPAC (it's not me setting these rules)
1) Identify the longest carbon chain containing the carbonyl group and OH at the end.
2) Assign each Carbon a number. Give #1 to the Carbon bonded to these groups.
3) Count the number of Carbons. This will be your parent chain so name the chain as if it were an alkane.
4) Take the 'ane' off the end and add the suffix 'oic acid'.
5) Name the other branches and add them to the name at the beginning. Arrange them in alphabetical order.
Shall we do some practise?
So we know that this is a carboxylic acid because of the elements in red. Now we have to count the number of Carbons: 5. So the alkane version would be pentane, but because it's an organic acid, we replace the 'ane' with 'oic acid'. Thus, it becomes pentanoic acid. We don't need to say 1-pentanoic acid because the 1 is implied.
Need more help, watch this video:
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