Carboxylic acid Organic compound nomenclature

It IS hard to find a class of compounds in which the common names of its members have influenced organic nomenclature more than carboxylic acids Not only are the common names of carboxylic acids themselves abundant and widely used but the names of many other compounds are derived from them Benzene took its name from benzoic acid and propane from propionic acid not the other way around The name butane comes from butyric acid present m rancid butter The common names of most aldehydes are derived from the common names of carboxylic acids—valeraldehyde from valeric acid for exam pie Many carboxylic acids are better known by common names than by their systematic ones and the framers of the lUPAC rules have taken a liberal view toward accepting these common names as permissible alternatives to the systematic ones Table 19 1 lists both common and systematic names for a number of important carboxylic acids... 

Many organic compounds contain oxygen atoms bonded to alkyl groups. The major classes of oxygen-containing compounds are alcohols, ethers, ketones, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, and acid derivatives. We will cover their nomenclature in greater detail in upcoming chapters. 

In the systematic nomenclature of organic compounds the acids of this series are named from the hydrocarbons to which they are related, in a way analogous to that adopted for the fatty acids. For example, acrylic acid, CH2 = CH.COOH, is named propenoic acid. The position of the double bond is indicated by placing before the name of the acid the Greek letter A to which is added a number indicative of the position of the double bond, thus,the substance of the structure,CH3.CH2.CH = CHCH2COOH is called A -hexenoic acid. The after the A indicates that the double bond is between the second and third carbon atom from the carboxyl group. The older names of the acids are usually used in the case, however, of newly described acids, and those of complex structure, the systematic method of naming compounds is employed. 

Because of their abundance in nature, carboxylic acids were among the first organic compounds studied in detail. No systematic nomenclature system was then available, so the acids were usually named after some familiar source. Acetic acid,... 

This subsection will familiarize the reader with the naniing system tor some of die more common and simple organic groups, and present the salient characteristics of these groups. The basic system of aliphatic organic nomenclature is shown in Table 4. The prefix for the name is based on the number of carbons involved and remains the. same for each type of compound described. The suffix is dctcnnined by the type of compound and is independent of the number of carbons in the molecule. Tlius. mediane. methanol, methanol (formaldehyde), and methanoic (fonnic) acid represent an alkane, an alcohol, an aldehyde, and a carboxylic acid, respectively, each with one carbon per molecule. In contrast, methanol,... 

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