What does t-butyl mean?

1 Answer
Jun 11, 2016

It's short for tert-butyl.

"But-" means 4, and "tert-" means tertiary (containing three R groups that aren't "H"). So what it means is you have a tertiary functional group, and it contains four carbons.

Therefore, the tert-butyl group looks like this:

The (1) is anything other than a carbon, since "but-", again, implies 4 carbons.

So, you might have, for example:

  • tert-butanol, in which (1) is "OH".
  • tert-butoxide, in which (1) is "O"^(-).

As a tip, it is convenient to remember the reaction of potassium tert-butoxide dissolved in tert-butanol, on high heat. That is an easy way to perform an "E"2 reaction in an exam. :)

Just write:

stackrel(t-"BuOK"" ")stackrel(t-"BuOH"" ")(->)
" "" """^(Delta)