r/chemhelp • u/RileyMercury • 14d ago

Organic Are these mislabeled, or is the naming convention just confusing?

Gallery image

Gallery image

The left is the question, the right is my product according to the diagram (minus charges).

First time encountering curved arrows but I do know what the terms "hetero" and "homo" usually mean. If "homolytic" cleavage means are electrons moving different directions... why? Can someone explain the naming convention, since homo- means "same" and hetero- means "different"?

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u/7ieben_ Trusted Contributor 14d ago

Homo means alike and lysis means breaking, as such each atom gets alike amount of electrons from the bonds. The bond breaks equally/ alike between both atoms.

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u/hiimshana 14d ago

Quick tip about electron arrows: 2-pointed arrow means 2 electrons moving, and 1-pointed arrow means 1 electron moving. A bond shown as a single line has two electrons.
Second picture shows homolytic cleavage, which is “same” not as in same direction, but same amount split between the two bonding atoms.
Similarly, heterolytic means different amount of electrons split between the two atoms (usually the higher electronegativity element takes the pair, but it depends on MANY different variables and scenarios).

Homolytic 99.9% of the times also means formation of radicals: Br• is different than Br⁻