There are many different kinds of reaction, but it seems evey one of them has these extra compounds on the reaction arrow (
) that don't even do anything...
They say they are catalysts or whatever, but what are they even doing???
For instance, I was writing out what the product is from 1-hexyne with H20 and H2SO4 and HgSo4.
They call this sort of reaction a keto-enol tautomerism reaction.
So first it produces an enol, and then it rearranges to form a keto tautomer.
But really, the H2O is the only thing here that actually reacted to form a new product. The O and the 2 H'S that got added were only from the H2O.
So what is the point of the other stuff in the reaction? I don't see how the H2SO4 or the HgSO4 did anything here... I guess this reaction would not have taken place without them, but WHY NOT???
Thanks for responding! You're awesome!