Do alkenes only form carbocations while carbonyl groups only form carbanions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter brake4country
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
1 reply · 2K views
brake4country
Messages
216
Reaction score
7

Homework Statement


Do alkenes only form carbocations while carbonyl groups only form carbanions?

Homework Equations


NA

The Attempt at a Solution


I understand the relative reactivity of carbocations and carbanions. How does one know when an organic compound follows heterolytic cleavage or homolytic cleavage of H? For example, do alkenes only make carbocations while ketones and aldehydes create carbanions?
 

Discussion

Physics news on Phys.org
You are mixing up quite a few things here and it is very difficult to give you an answer. Let's clear up some terminology and ideas here.

Carbonyl carbons do not form carbanions. In fact, carbonyl carbons have quite a bit of carbocation character, thus they are attacked by nucleophiles (think formation of an amide or any other -COOH type of chemistry).

Homolytic versus heterolytic cleavage does not result in positive versus negative charge. Homolytic cleavage leaves neutral molecules whereas homolytic cleavage will result in one positively and one negatively charged molecule. Please draw these out for yourself.

Please think about some of these ideas/terms and come back with any further questions.