- #1
thunderfvck
- 210
- 0
Hi.
I was reading through my organic chemistry book and they had a little piece on carbonic acid. So CO2 reacts with water and produces carbonic acid, very nice, I read about this before. But now that I've been enlighted with organic chemistry and the idea of mechanisms behind every reaction I was wondering how exactly CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid.
I tried it but encountered some problems then tried again JUST NOW and came up with soemthing, care to verify this seemingly simple mechanism?
Okay, one of the pi bonds in CO2 grabs a hydrogen from water, O=C=O -> H-OH ----> O=CH-O- + OH-. Next the oxygen with -ve charge in O=CH-O- takes the hydrogen from the adjacent carbon and while this is happening the OH- attacks the carbon and adds to it SN2 styles.
Of course this implies that CO2 is a relatively strong base compared to H2O but I am sure that's correct. Double O-pi action.
I was reading through my organic chemistry book and they had a little piece on carbonic acid. So CO2 reacts with water and produces carbonic acid, very nice, I read about this before. But now that I've been enlighted with organic chemistry and the idea of mechanisms behind every reaction I was wondering how exactly CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid.
I tried it but encountered some problems then tried again JUST NOW and came up with soemthing, care to verify this seemingly simple mechanism?
Okay, one of the pi bonds in CO2 grabs a hydrogen from water, O=C=O -> H-OH ----> O=CH-O- + OH-. Next the oxygen with -ve charge in O=CH-O- takes the hydrogen from the adjacent carbon and while this is happening the OH- attacks the carbon and adds to it SN2 styles.
Of course this implies that CO2 is a relatively strong base compared to H2O but I am sure that's correct. Double O-pi action.
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