What are aromatic compounds?

1 Answer
Jan 24, 2017

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Explanation:

In very short aromatic compound should fulfill the following criteria:-
1)the structure must be cyclic,containing some numbers of conjugated #pi# bonds.
2) each atom in the ring must have an unhybridised p orbital. (the ring atoms are usually #sp²# hybridized or occasionally sp hybridized.)
3) the unhybridized p orbitals must overlap to form a continuous ring of parallel orbitals.In most cases ,the structure must be plannar or nearly plannar for effective overlap to occur.
4) Delocalization of #pi# electrons over the ring must lower the electronic energy.

However "Erich Huckel" developed a very shortcut for predicting a aromatic compound. The rule tells us if the number of #pi# electron in the cyclic continous ring system is #4N+2# then compound is aromatic.