Talk:Functional group/Archive 1

Misspelling sulfur in its section
Was down as sulphur - this has been fixed to sulfur. I know it seems wrong but in chemistry it is correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur#Spelling_and_etymology

please dont change it back — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.228.145 (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Category vs. Article
We have a functional groups category as well as this page but they seem to double up on most things... Not sure if that's supposed to be changed or not, anyone feel free to delete this if that's how its supposed to be! Thx


 * The article summarizes all groups and allow to have a global view of them. The category allow to group all the groups... it seems to me that both of them have a different function, so don't double --Lyndametref 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Question
a Question: is phosphate (PO4) a functional group? is an acetyl (OCOCH3) a functional group?


 * Acetyl is usually considered as a special case of an ester, and things like phosphates and sulphates as salts of acids.


 * Kinases and phosphatases add and remove (kinases add and phosphatases remove) covalently bound phosphate
 * groups from proteins. Those covalently bound groups are indeed functional groups.


 * Acetyl groups are not part of ethers, but rather, are part of
 * esters. It just so happens that that the alcohol-derived
 * component of the acetyl group is larger than the acid-derived
 * component, and so gets nomenclature precedence, hence the need
 * for something to call the smaller-two carbon bit.


 * Similarly, the non alkyl or non aromatic portion of a molecule may be bigger than the alkyl or aryl group, in which case the alkyl or aryl group is considered a functional group, eg N-methylmorpholine versus morpholine.

Trophic criteria?
The first sentence talks about 'trophic criteria'. Can someone wikilink this to an article that explain the meaning of this term? ike9898 22:29, July 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * Never heard of it, and it ain't there no more! Remember to be bold - Jack ·talk · 06:48, Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Another question
what would be the name of such a functional group: R'O-CO-OR like in CR39 monomer. see link http://www.df.unibo.it/macro/intercast/charact.htm please email me (username:mireault).


 * If I understand your drawing correctly, this would be a carbonate. Hence, polycarbonate plastic. My eyeglasses, for instance, have polycarbonate lenses that have a high optical density (allowing a thinner, lighter lens) and good scratch resistance.--128.248.77.71 18:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Missing functional groups
We are missing the following functional groups:


 * phospho-
 * sulfo-
 * acyl halide
 * sulfide
 * sulfonium ion
 * phosphine


 * All now been added, except for sulfonium. Suggest we add it as following? Jack ·talk · 05:59, Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Nice work, Jack. Would these really all be considered part of the sulfhydryl family, though? Only thiols have a hydrogen atom.

Also, isn't this page getting a bit unwieldy? Could we split the table up into sections that could be jumped to via a table of contents?

Any comments gratefully received!

Ben 11:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree with any splitting off of the article. I was even thinking of getting basic functional groups listed for deletion, as everything in it is covered here, and merge would be pointless. Rant over, I changed the "sulfhydryl" to thio-, but then that presents new problems. Also, I've created Image:Sulfonium ion.png and discovered thioesters (R-S-CO-R') and thionoesters (R-O-CS-R'). Not sure where to put them in, if at all Jack · talk · 06:37, Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Great image! The reason I suggested sectioning this article (no, not under the MHA!) was that I envisage the table growing significantly. There are many more functional groups in existence than are represented in the table. See Category:Functional groups for some. If you don't know the name of a functional group, but want to find it in the table, you might have to scroll down for a long time to find it, paying careful attention to the images at each stage. Could we not divide the table up into sections, for examplefunctional groups containing nitrogen or similar? I feel the table is at risk of being unmanageable if growth continues at its present rate.

As for the name thio, perhaps sulfur-containing functional groups would be a more accurate description.

Ben 14:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh! Right, I understand. Sorry, I thought you meant splitting into sub articles... Yeah, go for the sections idea, that's fine by me. Although, what would you do about the complicated examples? Like thiocyanate, which contains sulphur and nitrogen? Jack · talk · 20:50, Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Phosphorous compounds
The following is a complete list of organophosphate functional groups, some of which are missing from the table: — Jack · talk · 02:01, Tuesday, 24 April 2007
 * Phosphine - PR3
 * Phosphine oxide - OPR3
 * Phosphinite - P(OR)R2
 * Phosphonite - P(OR)2R
 * Phosphite - P(OR)3
 * Phosphinate - OP(OR)R2
 * Phosphonate - OP(OR)2R
 * Phosphate - OP(OR)3

Functional groups missing from the template
The following is a list of functional groups that are in the functional group tables, but are missing from the functional group template:
 * Acyl halide
 * Carbonate
 * Carboxylate
 * Organic peroxides (peroxide and hydroperoxide)
 * Acetal
 * Hemiacetal
 * Imide
 * Azide
 * Nitrate
 * Nitrite
 * Sulfonic acid
 * Thioketone
 * Thial
 * Phosphate
 * Phosphodiester

Additionally, the anhydride functional group does not appear in either the table or the template.

Please add them to the functional group template as soon as possible. I posted this on the main article talk page and not on the template talk page because if I posted it on the template talk page, the post would get unnoticed.

F R  E Y W A  11:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Images are of classes not groups
There is a problem with the presentation of the information in this table. The structural formulas shown are of the chemical classes, not of the functional groups. Ketone is -(C=O)- and acyl (which is absent from the table) is R(C=O)-, but both would be shown as R1-(C=O)-R2 here and that would be confusing. Structural formulas should show groups without an R, e.g., hydroxyl: -OH, not ROH. --InfoCan07:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Rearranged for atom type
I rearranged the list by atom type so that each section can have a heading and it breaks the cumbersome table up. It also gives it a TOC, which is pretty awesome.Jgassens 22:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Additional Improvement
Each section could use an example of reactions which these types of groups undergo. I don't mean to say to include reaction schemes or place and entire article within the subheading, but to indicate that these functional groups usually undergo specific chemistry unique to them. See the halogen subsection for what I mean. Jeremiah (talk·cont) 23:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I second this notion. 70.249.152.70 (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Rebekah

In addition, the naming of the compounds gets a little confusing, as the order switches from common first to IUPAC first and back again. I would swtich it, but I'm not sure how. :) Maybe also specify the difference between IUPAC and common, as some people looking for basic info would not recognize that. Rebekah70.249.152.70 (talk) 23:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Imide and Amide in inorganic chemistry
Maybe there should be a note that imide and amide means something else in inorganic chem. (NR2- and NRR'-) —Precedingunsigned comment added by Christian75 (talk •contribs) 01:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)