Organic Chemistry: Functional Groups
A functional group is an attachment onto the end of a carbon chain just like a suffix on a word. An example is an alcohol. You would attach an OH on the end of the carbon chain like this:
CH3OH CH3-O-H
The name of the above molecule would be methanol. The methane part comes from the idea that there is one carbon and the -ol ending is added to the end as a suffix because of the OH.
The functional groups are as follows:
| Class | Functional Group | Suffix | Example |
| Alcohol | R-OH | -ol | Methanol |
| Aldehyde | R-C-H Oxygen not attached to chain but above or below the chain | -al | Ethanal |
| Halide | F, Cl, Br, I | -ide | Paradichlorobenzene |
| Amine | N | -amine | Hexamine |
| Carboxylic Acid | O=CR-OH Double bonded O and single bonded O attached to a hydrogen | -oic acid | Heptanioc acid |
| Ester | O=C-O-CR Double bonded O is not on the chain but single bonded is | -ate | Ethyl Propanate |
| Ether | C-O-C | -yl ether | Butyl-Ethyl ether |
| Ketone | RCO-C Oxygen is doubly bonded on first C and not on the chain. | -one | Pentanone |
Click here for practice problems without functional groups.
Chemistry organic chemistry problems.htm
Click here for practice with functional groups.