Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store

What is IUPAC nomenclature?

seo-qna
SearchIcon
Answer
VerifiedVerified
397.2k+ views
Hint :It enables to have a unique name for every compound which is not possible if the common names are used (Industrial names). The main goal of this system is to provide each structure a unique and unambiguous name, and then correlating each name with an unambiguous and unique structure.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
IUPAC stands for International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the purpose of IUPAC nomenclature is to establish a standard of naming compounds which can be used worldwide to facilitate communication and avoid confusions.
The nomenclature of a compound should follow these steps according to IUPAC guidelines:
First of all, the parent hydrocarbon is identified and named. Most of the time, the longest chain of carbon atoms is the parent chain. It can be a straight chain or in any other chain form.
The carbon atoms which belong to the parent hydrocarbon chain are numbered using natural numbers only and it begins from the end which means the lowest number gets assigned to the carbon atom which carries the substituents.
Prefixes are given according to the total number of the same substituent in the organic compounds. Some of the prefixes are di, tri, etc.
The organic compounds which contain multiple substituents, the corresponding substituents are arranged in the alphabetical order of their names given in the IUPAC nomenclature of organic compounds.
If two differing substituent groups are present at the same position of the given organic compound in such cases the substituents are named in ascending alphabetical order.

Note :
In normal situations to avoid long names, the IUPAC naming is not always followed in day to day communications, except when it is really necessary to give an unambiguous and unique definition to a compound.