Home > Community > 4-Bromo, 2,4-di-methylhexane and 3-Bromo, 3,5-di-methylhexane are the same thing?
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Olayemi Ola

4-Bromo, 2,4-di-methylhexane and 3-Bromo, 3,5-di-methylhexane are the same thing?

Brent Palmer  Follow

Acc. to IUPAC we have to give lowest locant no. to side chain which in this case is 2-Bromo-2,4-dimethyl.Another reason of this ans. being correct is that we take halides as a normal side chain and it is not given priority over methyl, we just only see lowest locant in this case.

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Benson Wangombe  Follow

Both names, ‘4-bromo-2,4-dimethylhexane’ and ‘3-bromo-3,5-dimethylhexane’ are unambiguous and describe the same compound. However, only ‘4-bromo-2,4-dimethylhexane’ is in accordance with IUPAC recommendations.

First of all, the seniority order of functional classes, which is used to choose the functional class (here: …hexane), does not apply to numbering of locants within the same compound class.

Concerning numbering of locants within the same compound class, the current version of Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry – IUPAC Recommendations and Preferred Names 2013 (Blue Book) reads as follows:

P-14.4 NUMBERING

When several structural features appear in cyclic and acyclic compounds, low locants are assigned to them in the following decreasing order of seniority:

(…)

(f) detachable alphabetized prefixes, all considered together in a series of increasing numerical order;

(…)

Furthermore,

P-14.3.5 Lowest set of locants

The lowest set of locants is defined as the set that, when compared term by term withother locant sets, each cited in order of increasing value, has the lowest term at the firstpoint of difference; (…)

Therefore, the example is correctly named as 4-bromo-2,4-dimethylhexane rather than 3-bromo-3,5-dimethylhexane since the locant set ‘2,4,4’ is lower than ‘3,3,5’.

4-bromo-2,4-dimethylhexane

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Dave Shawtie's  Follow

According to the IUPAC organic chemistry nomenclature, alkyl groups take precedence over halide groups so (4) is correct.

Similarly, C=C double bonds also take precedence over halides so (3) is incorrect and should be 2-bromoprop-1-ene.

(2) is also incorrect as there are only five carbons in the chain not six so the correct name is 4-oxopentanoic acid.

A table of functional group priorities can be found here.

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Frank Duncan  Follow
2-bromo-3-methylbutaneMore
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Josep Cobos  Follow
Nice catch on the oxopentanoic acid!More
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GMR- The Marketing Guy  Follow
(not 3-bromo-2-methylbutane).More
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Guillaume Gaudin  Follow
But if we follow that then 2-Bromo- 3-methyl butane never exists. But it pretty much does exist.More
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Jim Reich  Follow
2-bromo-3-methyl butane exists but it is not the correct IUPAC name for that molecule. the correct name is 3-bromo-2-methyl butaneMore
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