[chynagrl]

Hi everyone,

I'm having trouble naming a particular compound. It has a carbonyl group, with the two bonds of the carbon molecule that aren't bound to the oxygen connected to a phenol group and an alcohol group. It's kinda confusing. I'm not exactly sure whether it should be classified as a carbonyl, alcohol, or phenol. Which group takes precedence, and what should it be accurately named?

Thx a bunch!
~chynagrl

[azmanam]

Are you describing a carbonate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonate#Organic_carbonates

[sjb]

Is there any chance you could sketch out the structure? It sounds a bit like this:


but I'm not sure

S

[chynagrl]

uhhh... I'm not really sure how to post this, but it looks like this... (I don't have chemdraw)

[Arkcon]

Ah ... I'm embarrassed I didn't figure it out sooner, that is a carboxylic acid.  The whole -"carbonyl-hydroxide groups" is the carboxylic acid group.  That H comes off very easily, it is the sort of organic compound that layman will say is really acidic, in the Arrhenius definition.  What you have there is commonly called benzoic acid. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzoic_acid

[chynagrl]

thanks a bunch! by the way, does anyone know how to draw the chemical structures so neatly (is there some kind of program, other than chemdraw, which can do this and is free)?

[sjb]

Glad we got it sorted.

By the way, the ring there is a phenyl, not a phenol, hence my and azmanam's confusion

What OS are you running - there are a number of free chemical drawing packages, perhaps have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Molecule_editor&oldid=268985627 ?

S

[chynagrl]

oops... I guess I've gotta become a better orgo student 
I have windows vista home, 32x/bit/whatever it's called
My teacher told me that chemdraw works but it's really expensive:-(

Thx for the suggestions!