Laboratory shorthand names

Specialists in nomenclature recognise two different categories of nomenclature. Names that are arbitrary (including the names of the elements, such as sodium and hydrogen) as well as laboratory shorthand names (such as diphos and LithAl) are termed trivial names. This is not a pejorative or dismissive term. Trivial nomenclature contrasts with systematic nomenclature, which is an assembly of rules, themselves arbitrary. The function of specialists in nomenclature is to codify such rules so that everyone can use them to identify pure substances, rather like many of us use an alphabet to represent words. There may be more than one way to name a compound or species, and no one way may be superior to all the others. Names also vary in complexity, depending upon how much information needs to be conveyed. For example, a compositional name conveys less information than a structural (or constitutional) name, because this includes information about the arrangement of atoms in space. 

Alcohol ethoxylates and alcohol ethoxylate derivatives were chosen for study based on their predicted foaming properties, thermal and chemical stability, salinity tolerance, and adsorption characteristics. Table 1 illustrates the classes of surfactants used and the shorthand surfactant naming system employed. Except when noted, surfactants were developmental ENORDET surfactants from Shell Chemical Company or were research samples synthesized in our laboratory or at Koninlijke/Shell Laboratorium, Amsterdam. AES 810-2.6A was obtained from GAF Corporation. 

Cyclopropanes are occasionally found in Nature, and one class of naturally occurring cyclopropanes, the pyrethroids, are useful insecticides. These compounds are highly toxic to insects but not to mammals, and because they are rapidly biodegraded, cyclopropanes do not persist in the environment. The naturally occurring pyrethroids are found in members of the chrysanthemum family and are formally derived from chrysanthemic acid. Many modified pyrethrins not found in Nature have been made in the laboratory and several are widely used as pesticides. The molecule known as pyrethrin I has the systematic name 2,2-dimethyl-3-(2-methyl-l-propenyl)cyclopropanecarboxylic acid 2-methyl-4-oxo-3-(Z-2,4-dipentadienyl)-2-cyclopenten-1-yl ester. See why the shorthand is used ... 

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