Deep-Dive Guides · Named Reactions & Rearrangements
Organic Named Reactions — the complete deep dive
A single guide dense enough to take you from "I recognise the name" to CSIR-NET Part-C mastery. The organising idea: named reactions are not 200 flashcards but the nine mechanistic families mapped in §0.
Free extract — the opening section of the guide, in full.
0. How to use this guide — the family map
Before any single reaction, fix the map. Nearly every examinable named reaction is a member of one of these families, and the family tells you the bond formed, the mechanism class, and the usual selectivity:
| Family | Bond made / broken | Mechanistic signature | Flagship names |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enolate / carbonyl condensations | C–C α to a carbonyl | Nucleophilic enolate + electrophilic C=O (or C=N⁺) | Aldol, Claisen, Mannich, Michael, Knoevenagel, Perkin |
| Umpolung condensations | C–C, acyl-anion type | Reversed polarity of a carbonyl C (CN⁻ / NHC) | Benzoin, Stetter |
| Olefinations | C=C from C=O | Nucleophilic addition then elimination of a heteroatom oxide | Wittig, HWE, Julia, Peterson |
| Organometallic additions | C–C to C=O | Carbanion equivalent adds to carbonyl | Grignard, organolithium, Reformatsky, Barbier |
| Oxidations / reductions | C–H/C–O redox | Hydride transfer or O-transfer | Swern, DIBAL, LiAlH₄, Wolff–Kishner, Birch |
| 1,2-Rearrangements | σ-bond migrates to adjacent atom | Group migrates to an electron-deficient C/N/O with retention | Beckmann, Baeyer–Villiger, Pinacol, Hofmann, Curtius |
| Sigmatropic rearrangements | σ-bond relocates across a π-system | Concerted, thermal, suprafacial [3,3] | Claisen, Cope |
| Aromatic substitution / formylation | C–C or C–X on a ring | Electrophilic (or radical/SNAr) aromatic substitution | Friedel–Crafts, Vilsmeier, Reimer–Tiemann, Sandmeyer |
| Transition-metal couplings | C–C / C–N | Oxidative addition → transmetalation → reductive elimination | Suzuki, Heck, Sonogashira, Stille, Buchwald–Hartwig |
Read the rest of this guide
The remaining 12 sections — Enolate & carbonyl chemistry, Olefinations — building C=C from C=O, Organometallic additions, Oxidations & reductions and more — are part of ChemVidya Full Access, along with the other guides, the books, the study notes and 6,000+ practice questions with worked solutions.